Aarons Beard

System Error; Reboot

2011-05-07T18:03:00.005-04:00

Before moving this blog back to issues that drive my interest in Canadian Liberalism, here's my own analysis of what has gone wrong recently. Its pretty much the same as I wrote after the 2008 election.

This is grossly simplified but the intention is to highlight the structure of the party and how I suspect this affects the outcome. It goes like this. There are three mutually reinforcing elements in an electoral win: the campaign, the strength of the party base and luck. You need some of all three to win.

The Liberal campaign was good. It ran smoothly, the events were well-organized, and there were no major gaffes. IMO Ignatieff did a superior job on his first attempt. Much better than I was expecting. And I think he would have improved in a second election. I don't blame him. The people at the top ran a good show. But 1) they had bad luck when Quebec broke for the NDP which no one could have predicted. And 2) efforts to engage the base have not gone far enough.

If you have a small base, the likelihood that a good campaign will resonate is decreased. By base I mean people who reliably vote for the party and just can't bring themselves to vote strategically. These people vote, donate money, volunteer and, perhaps most importantly, move the opinions of their family and friends. You need to have a base to even begin to be taken seriously. The federal NDP have suffered from this problem for 50 years. The Conservatives have a formidable base that is the result of years of effort. And the Liberals have seen their base shrink.

A strong Liberal base would have also generated the money needed to respond to the massive Conservative media buy. The Conservatives created a negative image of Ignatieff that, like Dion, he was unable to overcome. Unsurprisingly, advertising works. If the Liberals hope to compete, they will have to raise an equivalent amount of money from their supporters.

Although Ignatieff's country-wide tour was a step in the right direction, I suspect the emphasis was more about preparing him for the campaign and building his leadership (top-down) than about a more radical change in the dynamic of the party (horizontal connections between individual members) that would I think reinvigorate the base. A leader can only shake so many hands. The historic strength of the Liberal base has permitted a culture in the head office that focuses on 'the campaign' rather than base-building. I don't doubt the intelligence and sincerity of the people leading the party. These are good Liberals. And I think there has been some effort to try new approaches at outreach. But it has not yet begun to address the problem adequately.

Scrap the per vote subsidy

2011-05-05T23:58:00.006-04:00

The loss of the per vote subsidy will likely force an important and long needed shift in the organization of the Liberal party. The per vote subsidy allows the central office to spend money in the name of the voters without the need to ask for their input. The subsidy in effect insulates the party leadership from interacting with the grassroots.

Now if the head office hopes to pay the electricity bill, it will have to wholly engage the membership. The party will become intimately familiar with the aspirations of the membership or die.

Its anecdotal evidence for sure but members of my family who live in four different regions of the country and have a long history of donating bucks to the party receive more cold calls from the Conservatives than calls from the Liberals. The Conservatives have taken every opportunity to reach out: radio, television, leaflets in the mail, cold calls. But a simple call from the Liberals to all its past donors? Not so much.

A Strong Conservative Mandate

2011-05-03T02:23:00.004-04:00

The Conservatives have won a strong mandate tonight to follow through with their crime agenda, scrap the hated gun registry and decrease the corporate tax rate. I think Canadians tend to prefer the tough guy when choosing a PM. We have clearly chosen Stephen Harper for the next four years.

If the left hopes to win eventually against Stephen Harper there will need to be some reorganization. The Liberal party won't gain much support if all it stands for happened in the last century. Although I have a sentimental attachment to the party, I am uncomfortable with the idea that it must be preserved because it is some sacred institution that Canada cannot survive without.

There needs to be a discussion with the NDP. Whether I personally could support the results of that discussion is an open question. There has always been something about Jack Layton I don't like but can't quite put my finger on. I am certain Stephen Harper will help me figure out exactly what that is.

Until recently the sudden rise of the NDP seemed as improbable as me voting Conservative in the next election. Now alot of things seem possible.

Predictions out the window

2011-04-22T03:57:00.007-04:00

Alot of people think that the NDP surge in Quebec indicates that the separatist movement is failing. But its not that clear to me.

A significant number of Quebec voters (more than enough to swing an election) are willing to vote for a federalist party in the Canadian election and then turn around and vote for the PQ in the provincial election. Its happened before and will likely happen again this year.

But maybe I should hold back on predictions. Who would have predicted a week ago that the NDP would poll first in Quebec? I didn't. You didn't either. And if you couldn't predict what would happen this week, why would you think you can predict what is going to happen next week?

The Liberal campaign has gone far better than I expected. Its been really solid. Ignatieff has been hitting all the right notes with me. And I really like the Liberal platform which puts families before jets, jails and corporate tax cuts.

If you believe in the Liberal vision and want to stop Harper, its time to come out swinging. Its time to fight for the country you want.

Image license information:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Jim Travers

2011-03-05T22:20:00.002-05:00

I always enjoyed reading Jim Travers. It was surprising to hear that he had died this week. He will be missed.

Government cover-up of interogation by torture?

2010-04-15T00:31:00.008-04:00

A Globe and Mail editorial comes close to stating the obvious question about political involvement in alleged war crimes when they write:

"The torture issue is all about the Canadian government’s willful blindness, an incuriosity that strains belief."

Were cabinet ministers in the Harper government involved in decisions that led to the torture of Afghan citizens?

Why has the Canadian Forces National Investigative Services not investigated allegations of torture?

"The military used the NDS as subcontractors for abuse and torture"

2010-04-14T23:49:00.002-04:00

The Globe and Mail reports disturbing allegations that innocent Afghans were knowlingly handed over for interogation by torture. This is a war crime under the Geneva Convention.

Select quotes from the article:
“I saw Canada’s military intelligence sending detainees to NDS, when the detainees did not tell them what they expect to hear. If the interrogators thought a detainee was lying, the military sent him to NDS for more questions, Afghan style. Translation: abuse and torture .... the military used the NDS as subcontractors for abuse and torture."

[...]He said he interviewed the detainees and determined none were Taliban. However, all were handed over to the NDS.

“None did anything wrong except to be at home when the Canadian Forces murdered their neighbour,” Mr. Malgarai recounted. “Yet Canada transferred all these innocent men to the NDS.”

Dion the Rebel

2008-12-10T22:07:00.006-05:00

At a certain level of detachment, a leader is a vehicle for the type of policies that you want enacted. And I believe Michael Ignatieff will be a good vehicle for the aspirations of Canadian Liberals.

For the last two years, I have supported Stephane Dion as leader of the party because I believe he is a man of integrity and great intelligence. A great Canadian who has devoted himself to the country and the party. As a consequence, he has suffered many attacks. He led the party in the aftermath of the sponsorship scandal and was villified by Harpers political machine.

Michael Ignatieff will eventually face the same type of attacks. In my small way, I will help to defend Ignatieff and promote the party. And I hope that he is able to rise above the personal smears in a way that Stephane Dion ultimately was unable to do.

Dion worked effectively under both Jean Chretien and Paul Martin as a highly competent minister. They gave him difficult tasks (the Clarity Act, the Montreal Climate Change Summit) which he accomplished with impressive skill. And for that also the party and Canada owes Stephane Dion our deep respect and gratitude.

The linked video is not one that I would have featured when he was leader, but what the heck.
h/t Garth Turner

We love you, Stephane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsIBtKRmjM8

Conservative Manipulation of the Media

2008-12-06T15:55:00.004-05:00

The rumours and misinformation circulated freely by Canadian newsmedia this week is worrisome.

Ottlibs thoughtful post yesterday on conservative media bias and comments by readers might make you wonder what the news should sound like.

What are the alternatives?

Here is an example. (It starts with a 15 second commercial for RealNews by Danny Glover)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI9vtBYOsqE

I don't know much about RealNews.

But it makes you wonder whether the Internet might ultimately provide the answer (or corrective) to media concentration and its abuse by wealthy conservatives.

The Conservative use of its base as a instrument to attempt to sway talk-radio and flood message boards with party doctrine also needs to be addressed.

Cool Down Period?

2008-12-04T16:41:00.002-05:00

The media are claiming that the prorogation is a "cool down" period.

Well think again. Brace yourself for the attack ads.

Is there anyone who seriously thinks that if Harper gets to the other side of this he will suddenly be chastened and act responsibly? Really?

When/if the coalition is off the table, Harper will destroy the opposition.

Parliamentary Democracy thwarted

2008-12-04T12:23:00.003-05:00

The power of the Prime Ministers office over the elected House of Commons has been reinforced today. And the airy ideals of the former Reform party (which resides now in the present Conservative party) for greater democracy have been voided and revealed as empty rhetoric.

The precedent set today is also a strong argument against minority parliaments and any reform to the electoral system that would favor minority parliaments. It is a commitment to more elections and their abuse. Good thing if you are a political junkie I guess, but bad for everyone else.

Will the coalition hold? The Conservatives would like to think not.

I do not blame the Governor-General. She should not have been put in this position.

Do you want a Prime Minister who is willing to say anything, generate any crisis to retain power?

Harper's Destructive Path to Power

2008-12-02T18:08:00.006-05:00

This is no joke. We are in an international economic crisis.

But the Canadian government is caught up in the worst political crisis since the 1995 referendum.

And who is at the center of it? Stephen Harper.

Albertans are talking about separation. And Harper is stoking the separatist fires here in Quebec by suggesting that elected representatives of Quebec are not legitimate.

Harper is wielding the Conservative party like a weapon against the constitution and parliamentary democracy. And he will stop at nothing to get complete power.

Harper is likely the most divisive politician in Canadian history at a time when we need to be drawing various factions in the country together to meet the economic crisis

To resolve this crisis, Harper must be removed. That is the minimum condition.

Scott Brison on what will happen

2008-11-28T18:43:00.003-05:00

Scott Brison gave this interview to the Globe and Mail today on what will happen in parliament.

I just took a look at some Blogging Tories sites and I am shocked by their weak understanding of Canadian democracy. Don't they teach this stuff in school anymore? I guess the Conservative's understanding of Canadian civics is only matched by their understanding of the economy.

There are 305 elected members in the House of Commons. In our democracy, you either find the support of more than half of those elected representatives to form a government and pass legislation or you do not and are defeated. There is not alot of ambiguity about that.

You have to work with the other parties in a minority. Harper chose not to. What I find bizarre about all this is: the Conservatives seem surprised.

Regime Change

2008-11-27T18:00:00.003-05:00

In the current economic crisis which Stephen Harper has likened in potential scale to the Great Depression and in light of a recent election, it would be irresponsible of the Governor-General to dissolve parliament at this time if the current ministry is defeated because of its unwillingness to bend to the will of the House of Commons.

It is clear that the current ministry does not intend, or is not intellectully able, to introduce the measures necessary to diminish the impact of the coming recession. In fact, the Harper government seems to be so fully occupied with cheap political gamesmanship that cooperation in the current session appears highly unlikely.

And yet the Liberal minority government led by Lester Pearson was one of the most fruitful legislative periods in Canadian history.

Its time for regime change.

Structural Weakness

2008-10-16T20:32:00.002-04:00

If there is a structural weakness in the Liberal party, it is due, I think, to factional infighting. It takes time to build a winning coalition and if Liberals want to affect the direction of this country (on health care, on the economy, on our role in the world), that's what the party should be focussing on now.

We need more money first off. By my estimate the next round of Harper attack ads will come out before Christmas. Will we be able to respond?

Also, there is, I believe, a remarkable potential for growth in Quebec. But that will require alot of patient effort, working the ridings and building networks and friendships.

None of the things which we need to do to win the next election will happen if the factions are allowed at each other again. I can only imagine that another leadership contest would exacerbate the structural weakness of the party in many and unexpected ways.

How long after such a contest would it be before "Senior Anonymous Liberals" of the losing factions start telling an emboldened CTV(spit)that the new leader is incompetent and not in control of caucus? How many more Libloggers will regurgitate Conservative talking points and openly disparage a new leader during the next campaign? How many Liberal partisans will sit on the sidelines until their "guy" wins.

These contests are emotionally divisive and the party will look incredibly weak during the minority parliament (feeding the NDP narrative). If we seed bad faith now, we will harvest some ugly twisted fruit during the next election.

Dion ran a good campaign without gaffes. And at a certain point last week, alot of Liberals started to think that we just might be able to pull off a victory. In the last few days the tide turned. I think the most effective use of the party's emotional and intellectual resources would be to figure out what changed in those few days. How do we mount a better campaign next time.

This definitely involves analysis of the Green Shift. We may need to drop the carbon tax because the envrionmental movement is fickle and undisciplined. If there is going to be a serious engagement of environmental issues, we'll need to Will it into being within the framework of our own party. But no one is going to come up with the policies that will unite the party if we head into a leadership contest now.

So, if I were Stephane, my first instinct would be to tell the champions of division where to stick it (diplomatically but firmly).

I am a Grit, though. But I think Stephane Dion is one too.

Hope and Patience

2008-10-15T00:33:00.003-04:00

I want action on the environment. I want to decrease child poverty. I want a responsible government that brings together the best minds in the country to solve our economic and social needs.

There are many people in the country who want the same thing as I do. We now have to consider what is the best way to deliver the intelligence and good will of Canadians to this end.

Its been a long campaign. We all need some time to withdraw and in a few weeks soberly consider the way forward. I am proud to be a Liberal. I believe in the issues that the party has forwarded in this election. We should never be ashamed of our aspiration for a better Canada.

Why I am Voting for Change

2008-10-13T12:37:00.009-04:00

I care about the environment and I want more doctors and nurses.

I want Canada to get away from the neverending Conservative "War on Terror"

And I want Stephen Harper replaced tomorrow.

As Elizabeth May has said, Stephen Harper's "plan" to reduce greenhouse gases that cause global warming is a fraud. If Harper remains as Prime Minister, Canada will do nothing. Worse the Conservatives actually sabotage at international meetings the efforts of countries that want to do something about this crisis.

The Conservative response to global warming. A grease spot attack ad. Here is a spoof.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI6HaoVde4I

The Liberals Green Shift plan brings together scientists concerned about the environment with the brightest Canadian minds from the field of economics. All working together to develop the best long-term strategy to create a sustainable economy. Providing industry and individual voters the incentives and investments they need to really make a difference.

The Liberals also have an ambitious plan to decrease child poverty as well increase the number of doctors and nurses at a time when aging Baby Boomers will be putting the Canadian Health system under increasing stress. The Liberal platform.

And then there is the expensive and violent Conservative War on Terror.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7xyd_IRgGs

Stephen Harper wanted Canada to invade Iraq.

He said so in a speech that he plagiarized from the right-wing Prime Minister of Australia.

Fortunately it was a Liberal government at the time who said, NO to George Bush's war of aggression.

We will get nothing we want if Harper gets re-elected. Nothing but more wars, more prisons, and more poverty.

It is time to replace Harper with a progressive Liberal government.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzmI3XrF0f0

Tremendous Disappointment for Harper

2008-10-12T19:42:00.005-04:00

The immense room reserved for Harper's big end of campaign booster rally in Quebec City was almost empty today (organizers scrambled to get the fewer than 500 partisans who showed up in the aspirational "heart" region of the Conservative Quebec strategy). Read about it here in LaPresse.

"Mauvais messages, stratégie contre-productive.

Mais il y a plus. Le chef lui-même n’est vraiment pas inspirant.

Ses discours sont ennuyants, son sourire est forcé et le contact avec les gens restent pénible.

Plus de quatre ans après avoir pris la tête du nouveau Parti conservateur, M. Harper n’a pas réussit à se rapprocher des électeurs. Au contraire, il traine même la réputation d’être indifférent aux préoccupations de ses concitoyens."

(translation mine; read the original)

"Bad messaging and a counter productive strategy.

But there is more. The leader himself is not inspiring.

His speeches are boring, his smile is forced and the interaction with people is painful. More than four years after taking the leadership of this new Conservative party, Mr. Harper has still not succeeded in reaching the voters. To the contrary, he drags behind him a reputation for not caring about the concerns of the people."

See also this insightful analysis of the Harper disaster in Quebec. Harper was supposed to have this election in the bag, but Quebeckers see clearly his hard right wing agenda. More wars, more prisons, no action on the environment and a poor record of economic management. Plus he's a jerk.

We need to replace Stephen Harper with a progressive government.

Harper's Leadership Doubted

2008-10-11T21:35:00.006-04:00

According to Nanos, Harper's personal impopularity may hold his party back. The Globe and Mail reports that it may be a good strategy for Harper to refuse questions from the media for the remainder of the campaign.

Kim Campell: A campaign is no time to talk about policy.

Stephen Harper: A campaign is no time to answer voters questions.

Other good reasons for Harper to hide from the media:
He has no platform to run on (22 pages of Harper photos does not count). And new evidence contradicts Harper's version of the Cadman bribery scandal

What is Harper hiding now?

Stéphane Dion Day Thirty-Four

Who Will Fight For Canada?

2008-10-11T02:05:00.004-04:00

Who will fight for a Canada?

Chretien knows (we all know) that Stephane Dion will.

Here is the link to Chretien's speech in Brampton on Friday night

The best line of the night goes to Dion according to Radio-Canada. I will post Dion's speech as soon as I can find it.

It is time to replace Harper and his incompetent ministers with a strong Liberal government.

Dion On the Issues

2008-10-10T21:20:00.005-04:00

When Dion talks about the issues he is at his best.

Here is Stephane Dion's interview with Lloyd Robertson on CTV (spit).

Listen at the end when Lloyd reluctantly raises the delicate issue of language.

Does the fact that Dion is a francophone disqualify him to be Prime Minister? Dion playfully turns the issue around and asks Lloyd what he thinks. And the well-humoured cosmopolitan Lloyd responds "I understand you." Lloyd's no bigot.

This is not to say anything about how Lloyd will vote, he does work for CTV (spit) afterall, but
the people that Dion needs to reach understand what he is saying when he speaks about the issues. And the issues are what the people will vote for if they hear them.

I don't believe in the noisy little ups and downs of polls +/- up to 10 % (especially in consideration of their empirically established conservative bias i.e. six to ten points overrated in the most recent federal elections (what are they really measuring?)), but the dramatic plunge in the Conservative polling numbers 11-15 points when Canadians started really hearing about the different parties policies, indicates to me that they are motivated by the issues (if they hear them). Leadership is a short-cut that doesn't really work in a campaign. But you can still hear the last whining shrieks of air coming out of that bag of nothing from the media.

Liberal policies: français english

Harper loses his cool

2008-10-10T01:26:00.003-04:00

Harper enters whole new territories of shrill partisanship.

Harper is trying to make an issue out of an interview Dion had with CTV. Dion is really good generally in the interview format. The interviewer asks a complicated hypothetical question; Dion asks him to clarify; they joke around a bit, then start again. You can go watch the video, or look at Harper's over-the-top reaction. (It is a desperate Rovian attempt to distract voters from the issues)

But the only thing you are likely to remember about this by Sunday is the joke told about it in Brampton at the Liberal gathering on Friday night.

Why don't you try.

It could be a couple sentences long, but a one-liner would be preferable.

Here are the ingredients:
Harper's lack of concern for working families in tough times
Harper's pettiness
Harper's hyper-partisanship
Harper's lack of a platform
(22pages of pictures of yourself does not count, Steve)
Harper's doubtful judgement in spontaneous situations
Harper's history of distortions
Harper's negative attack ads
Harper's lack of vision

Extra points if you can also convey how you REALLY feel about Mike Duffy Live or bird poop.

If you live in a family that has a history of voting Liberal at any point since 1993, that's the joke you will hear repeated at Thanksgiving dinner.

The question remains who will deliver the joke. My bet is da little guy from Shawinigan.

Dion Could Be Our Next Prime Minister

2008-10-09T19:54:00.004-04:00

Dion could be our next Prime Minister according to Stephen Harper. Yes, that is possible.

And I have every confidence that Dion would make a very good Prime Minister with an exceptionally strong cabinet. Since the debates, Dion has reached the voters that could make this happen. And he will be able to work well with the other parties. There is a shrewdness in Dion's negociating abilities that the media have not picked up on yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-NZqGGyREs

But I am not sure why Harper is advertising a Liberal government now.

My gut tells me this is yet another mistake (similar for example to his profound miscalculation about the "War on Terror" or calling this election etc. etc. etc.)

It is probably based on some polling data and a complex secret statistical formula hidden in the darkest depths of the Conservative War Room. One vote here, two votes there. Or maybe Harper is just winging it again. I am guessing that Harper believes the possibility of a Liberal government will make Canadians afraid maybe? Really? Outside of his base, I just don't see how this will be effective.

And Harper's real base is much less than was pretended. That is becoming more obvious since the LEADERSHIP fantasy has exploded.

I recall it being reported earlier in the campaign that Harper's support was very firm. But this cannot have been true and I don't think it is anymore true now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkbD7gn8WII

Yes, Dion could be our next Prime Minister.

French

English

Harper: Oops! I forgot to write a Platform

2008-10-08T19:57:00.004-04:00

Harper is in his third election campaign, but he somehow forgot to write a coherent platform before the start of the campaign. That's not smart. There are a number of miscalculations on Harper's part that I think are going to come under increasing scrutiny in the remaining days of the campaign. Mistakes and blunders.

One of Harper's glaring weaknesses is his inablity to perform in the confrontational one-on-one interview format. Harper gets angry and brittle.

The debates were in a very similar format and that hurt him (especially in Quebec)

Compare and Contrast Dion/Harper Interviewed on RadioCanada.

Harper' s Interview

Dion's Interview

(try clicking the links twice; the second try seems to work or just go here)

Harper's body language is all wrong. At one point, in a defensive posture, Harper looks like he is trying to shove his shoulders into his ears. But that is not the major problem.

It is not because Harper has an accent. Harper's french is not good, but that is not the reason why he is doing so miserably in Quebec right now. Dion's english is highly accented too, but he is able to use english much more effectively than Harper. Listen to the interview when Bernard Derome asks Harper what he meant when he said that Canadians have become more conservative. The problem is not Harper's french (which is not good) but that he does not have an answer beyond the soundbite.

In general Harper demonstrates a lack of reflexion in all his answers. Dion excels in this format because it shows he has thought through the issues before and is only looking for the correct words to express his ideas. Under close questioning, Harper's ideas are absent beyond glib one-liners.

Derome is equally tough on both Dion and Harper (well maybe a little easier on Harper because of the language barrier). The funniest part is at the end of the Harper interview when Derome takes Harper to task over rumours (rumours intitiated by Conservatives) that a Conservative government would dismantle the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Harper totally flubs the answer.

The problem with Harper in Quebec is the issues. And he should have known this and planned for it a long time ago. Harper is on the wrong side of almost every issue and a smile won't cover that up. (Not that Harper even tries to smile)

The Conservatives are heading toward disaster in Quebec. Harper is to blame.

Stephen Harper is a BUNGLER!

2008-10-07T19:25:00.005-04:00

There is more news of economic turmoil with governments around the world taking action to shield themselves against the worst, while Stephen Harper releases his platform to tackle Senate Reform. Senate Reform?

If Stephen Harper gets back into government, you are on your own because he will be very busy reopening the Constitution to tackle Senate reform. It's just that important to him.

Stephen Harper is a bungler.
And I think he is getting desperate.

--------------------------

Update: By contrast here is Stephane Dion: energized, confident and at ease talking about policy.

What the Liberals will do to address the economic crises in the first 30 days of forming a government. The immediate Plan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRnK8WugX-Y

-Speed up investments in infrastructure and the manufacturing sector to create an immediate economic stimulus
-Demand the recommendations of the major financial institutions and leading economists
-Coordinate the efforts of the provinces to protect Canada against the international crisis

Sounds pretty reasonable to me given the circumstances.

I am still not clear whether Stephen Harper believes that there is a problem.

A Gimmicky Conservative Platform

2008-10-06T17:03:00.006-04:00

I think that it is becoming increasingly clear that Stephen Harper's perfomance in the leaders debate in english was awful (and in french just disastrous).

In the face of life-changing economic upheaval, Harper is preparing to do nothing.

And Canadians saw that in the debates.

If Harper manages to form a second government, you are on your own.

Tomorrow, the Conservatives bowing to public pressure will offer a face saving and belated policy platform. Like most Conservative policy announcements, it will be made to great fanfare. And like most Harper announcements, it will be thoroughly discredited within two or three days.

I suspect that the platform will be laundry list of tax loopholes that will render the Canadian tax system more arcane and difficult to navigate.

If the Conservatives want to lose the election definitively, they will talk about Senate reform and reopening the constistution.

What we won't get tomorrow is visionary policy.

It will be B.S. in front of a media-friendly backdrop.

Thousands at Anti-Harper Rally Today

2008-10-05T17:15:00.003-04:00

Thousands (10 000+) of concerned citizens rallied to protest against the hard-right wing policies of the Harper governement today in Montreal.

Watch the news report here.

Harper is a threat to the Canada we want.

Effective Ads

2008-10-05T13:50:00.003-04:00

Stephane Dion's performance during the Leaders Debates was excellent.

He speak the truth best in english and french. ;)

(It puts to rest that strange Harper talking point about Dion's proficiency in english. Good. In the tight linguistic game of a high-stakes televised Leaders debate, Dion articulated the Liberal plan precisely. I always viewed the slurs on Dion's english as a species of conservative bigot talk anyway. And a bit ironic considering Harper's obvious weakness in french. But I live in Quebec...)

Here are some ads that are out. The effect is cumulative and I think quite powerful. I got the full message after watching a few of them.

The ads are simple. And the talk is straight. Here is a selection.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2E-Eq37qdw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu6z-l8Um_Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5DZmpE6_AE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lkNHUK9Jis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRvSo3egncA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SkffVIPh-M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awN1WejijFw

Cré moi, Cré moi pas

2008-09-21T19:11:00.006-04:00

Stephen Harper does not love Quebec culture. Don't buy the B.S.

Here’s a video by Michel Rivard “Culture en peril” poking a stick at arts funding under an imagined gouvernemoo majoritaire Conservative. Shades of Kafka. Phoque!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnccaVAKLwI

Wake up Canada before it's too late.

Update: Link to the full song :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ6CSOLxbeM

Dion wants to Decrease your Income Taxes

2008-09-16T19:06:00.004-04:00

Stephane Dion wants to decrease your income taxes.

What???

I will say it again.
Stephane Dion wants to decrease your income taxes!

Bob Rae, Michael Ignatieff, Ken Dryden, Scott Brison, Martha Hall-Findlay, Gerard Kennedy...
in short, the Liberal party wants to decrease your income taxes in a big way.

But who will pay for this big income tax decrease?
Polluters will. The more you pollute the more you pay.

There will be financial winners and losers in the new economy where energy costs are skyrocketing whether you believe in global warming or not. The losers will be those who decide to pollute more. And the Liberal Green Shift Plan budgets to help every Canadian who needs it, e.g. homeowners, fishers, truck drivers etc. to become a winner in the face of huge increases in energy costs.

Frankly, I think in the sense of personal responsibility anyone who does not care about the future environment of their children is an emotional "loser". Like the losers who dump their trash on the side of the road. They don't care about anyone else. Conservatives don't care. For them it is all about "ME" and now. They preach personal responsability, but it is just a mask for greed and an immature sense of entitlement.

Now these "losers" will have financial incentives to think about before throwing garbage into the air. It seems that is the only way to get through to some people. And God-bless-them, a Liberal government will help them to become more energy efficient, to save their money instead of giving it away to the oil companies, with incentives and income tax cuts.

It is visionary.

The Liberal party, like in the days of Chretien/Martin, are asking Canadians to exhibit some fiscal restraint and personal responsibility for the sake of the nation and the world. A message, which in my opinion, is well-crafted for the typical thoughtful and caring Canadian voter.

Let's decrease our income taxes. Vote Liberal!

Cool New Ads and an old Advertising Story

2008-09-14T12:39:00.004-04:00

I saw this one on t.v. last night as I was eating a quick dinner.

also h/t m5slib

Grand'>http://www.liberal.ca/video_f.aspx?guid=35F5F885-3DEB-4E3B-B4AB-332CCA02AD6E">Grand Leader

In other news, a media release of the RCMP could play in the election as reported by LaPresse today. This sounds familiar doesn't it. The RCMP releasing information that casts a dark shadow on the Liberals during an election campaign which was called last week by Stephen Harper. During the last election, the RCMP announced a mid-campaign investigation into the dealings of then Finance Minister, the honorable Ralph Goodale. The polls shifted dramatically over the following week. The investigation was dropped after the election because the charges were unsubstantiated.

In addition to being the most shrilly denounced and most thoroughly investigated scandal in Canadian history, adscam could break a whole new record: the longest lasting --three election cycles. That would be really incredible.

Duceppe's reaction to the news was interesting. Reader's are reminded that Jean Brault, a main actor in the federal ad scandal, also had some dubious transactions with Lucien Bouchard's provincial PQ government. "The Parti Quebecois knowingly took nearly $100,000 in illicit contributions from ad agency." -The Gazette June 22, 2006.

What has taken the RCMP so long?

The RCMP, I suppose, believe that their image with the Canadian public is so solid that they can withstand the potential perception of scandal during an election campaign. What? Maher Arar? Retirement Fund Scandal and Cover-up? Tasers? Honest people do not criticize the RCMP.

The Conservatives handpicked new chief of the RCMP, William Elliot is also unforunate in the sense of the potential for perception of bias on this particular matter of releasing information during an election. Unlike previous chiefs, Elliot was not a policemen before his appointment to this position.

"That would be the worst possible choice for the RCMP right now," said retired Staff Sgt. Ron Lewis, one of the five RCMP officers who led the campaign to reopen the investigation into the pension plan scandal."And that kind of an appointment would also put an end to an arms-length relationship with government. If the government wants to fully control the RCMP, then putting a bureaucrat in there is one step closer to shortening the arms-length."

Umm.... What I am trying to say is this: the RCMP, for the sake of its own effectiveness in providing public order, needs to manage its image. Since the ability to do their job properly is in part based upon public trust, they should at all costs avoid even the slightest appearance of impropreity.

Has the image of public institutions been enhanced or debased during the reign of Stephen Harper?

Elections Canada
Nuclear Safety Watchdog
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the court challenges program
Have I missed a few?

Environmental Crisis Meets Quebec Identity Politics

2008-09-12T12:30:00.005-04:00

Linguistic and sociological tensions frequently mask the real challenges facing Quebec as I argued on this blog during the last provincial election. Competitivity, health care and now the environment have been reflected through the fun house mirror of Quebec identity politics to the detriment of actual debate on how to deal with these issues.

"I am more Quebecker than you..."
"Referemdum!" "No referendum"

These old slogans are a bit tired, as well as dangerous because of their obscurantism.

There is a certain interpretation of the unexpected rise of the ADQ in the last election which holds that the ADQ symbolized in the minds of many a turn away from the identity politics of the past. (Whether the policies of the ADQ truly involved such a turn is a separate subject that I will leave to subtler minds than myself). I too felt that appeal because, as I said, I think that most issues suffer from distortions of french/english tension.

Until recently, the Bloc were advancing a general line of reasoning that Quebecker's greater concern for the environmental crisis was another example of a distinct culture, and thus reason to separate. It is a weak argument that convinced only a few.

Now, Harper claims quite falsely that the Liberal Green shift plan will cause a recession, and thus will give Quebecker's a reason to separate. This is as weak an argument as the Bloc argument.

Unfortunately, both arguments mask the problem of what is the appropriate action to take on the environment. Conservative and Bloc politicians have been using linguistic tension to mask the fact that most economists and environmentalists agree that to deal effectively with the carbon emissions that cause global warming a price must be put on carbon. The fastest way to put a price on carbon is to tax it because, unlike a new bureaucratic investment in an unknown cap-and-trade system, we already have the infrastructure to tax carbon.

The Liberal Green Shift plan would use the money raised by the tax to decrease income tax and help Canadians become more energy efficient. Since, regardless of your beliefs about global warming, energy prices will continue to rise steeply, a more energy efficient economy will be a more competitive one.

You may or may not agree with my argument in favour of the Green Shift Plan, but Quebeckers on the whole ARE concerned about the environment. Responsible politicians and responsible members of the media would present voters with the facts about the options (and note how these facts may be distorted with identity politics by unworthy politicians).

Perhaps some would rather indulge in the old slogans: "I am more Nationalist than you." These latter individuals will be doing the greatest disservice to the nation.

Harper Government Lied about Torture

2008-09-08T21:24:00.006-04:00

The editorial in the Globe and Mail today leads one to believe that even they do not believe Harper is sincere about his sudden promise to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2011.

"But further decisions about our future role in that country must be made in a sober fashion, removed – as much as possible – from the partisan pressure cooker of a federal election campaign."

That is, wink wink nudge nudge, we'll see about this again later after the election.

It was, in fact, the Conservatives with their "don't cut and run" "scumbags" "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here" "global war on terror" language that really politicized the debate here in Canada. Harper thought it was a vote getter. But it was not. It was dumb both politically and in terms of finding a way forward in a minority parliament because it poisoned the discussion with infantilism.

Given Harper's past statements, his history of abrupt flip-flops and broken promises, and his devotion to secrecy, I think any reasonable Canadian would have doubts about what his real intentions are. In other words, I don't think many people believe that if he gets a majority we will be pulling out of Afghanistan in 20011.

The conservatives have demonstrated time again their inability to deal with this complex file. The most highly reported example is the torture allegations. Not only did the Conservatives lie about the Afghan detainee issue, about torture, listen as Harper and his ministers deflect the issue with cheap jingosim and chest thumping.

http://www.youtube.com/v/R2cAKZlonM8&hl=en&fs=1

Can Harper be trusted to tell us the truth?

Harper lying about Afghanistan?

2008-09-08T21:12:00.003-04:00

In the following video, Stephane Dion clearly details the Harper government lies on the Afghanistan issue. (The video starts after 16 seconds)

Is Stephen Harper a Liar?

"If you cannot believe them on something as important as torture, when can you believe them?"
-Dion

Is Stephen Harper a Liar?

2008-09-08T20:06:00.004-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeUGhSgWIy8

Is Stephen Harper a Liar?

In my last post, I said how surprised I was that angry man Stephen Harper, who has run a constant negative campaign of childish ads against Stephane Dion since the day he was elected Leader, this same Stephen Harper was now concerned that the Liberals would run a negative election campaign against him. Poor baby.

As if to demonstrate definitively that he thinks he can fool everyone. This morning at 6:00AM he released even more attack ads on Stephane Dion. In the afternoons, he pretends he is a warm fuzzy family man (at least this week).

Crybaby Harper

2008-09-07T00:24:00.003-04:00

After a year of ugly attacks on the character of Stephane Dion, after calling the opposition parties Taliban-sympathisers, attempting ludicrously to link a Liberal MP to the Air India bombing, and creating an idiotic website, conservative.ca (now cleaned up a bit for the elections) that was almost entirely devoted to attacking the Liberals and their Leader in the most childish of terms.... After all that and more, Harper is afraid that the opposition parties might hurt his feelings by going negative, i.e. talk about his poor management of the economy and mean spirited narrow ideological views.

Poor Harper. And such an unbelievable hypocrite.

"To be really honest, I anticipate a very nasty, kind of personal-attack campaign," he told Lloyd Robertson, CTV's chief news anchor and senior news editor, at Harrington Lake.
"That's just what I'm anticipating; that's what the opposition's done in the past. I think that whether Canadians agree with what we're doing or not, I don't think they're going to believe the kind of personal attacks and scare tactics that we've seen in the past."

Tell us again Harper about how the Liberal Green Shift Plan, which will lower income taxes by increasing taxes on pollution, is, in your trashy words, going to "Screw Canadians."

What a hypocrite.

What a whiner.

Harper breaks his word AGAIN

2008-09-05T19:50:00.002-04:00

Well where to start?

Harper breaks his promises once again. There is no honesty in this governement. Its like the old days but worse because Harper is a lying, scheming hypocrite.

Harper and the Cadman Scandal

2008-09-04T13:30:00.006-04:00

The family of former MP Chuck Cadman claims that, before he died of terminal cancer, the conservatives offered him a 1 million dollar insurance policy to help defeat the previous Liberal government.

http://watch.ctv.ca/news/clip89011#clip89011

If the allegation is true, it would affect the decision of a large number of voters. It speaks directly to the issue of ethics in the Conservative party.

Harper is in a position to find out. An honest person would explain the discrepancy. If not, Canadians will need to decide with their votes who they believe.

http://watch.ctv.ca/news/clip35176#clip35176

Who is telling the truth: the Cadman family or the Conservative party?

Harper testifies under oath

2008-09-03T22:39:00.004-04:00

"Prime Minister Stephen Harper has testified that he personally authorized an offer made to late MP Chuck Cadman in 2005 for help defeating the Liberal government."

"It was Mr. Harper's first detailed account of his role in the so-called Cadman affair and, during four hours of testimony, he offered two different versions of when he first learned about Cadman's financial troubles."

So now I am confused. There was a life insurance policy offered to Chuck Cadman?

Is that not illegal?

Update: The article from the first link has been changed. The above direct quotes were reworded.

Harper Anxiety Attack

2008-08-25T20:41:00.004-04:00

It's the end of summer. Most people are relaxed. Except Steven Harper, it seems, who is having an anxiety attack over "dysfunctional" parliamentary committees.

(I thought the conservative strategy was to brazenly sabotage the committees because regular Canadians don't pay attention to such things)

Anyways, I don't see why it would be necessary for the Leader of the Opposition to drop all his plans and jump on the next plane because Harper is having a freak out. I don't sense the urgency. Maybe Harper could make further explanations to the press...

Budget Surplus and Cancelled Ships

2008-08-23T12:38:00.002-04:00

I wonder if the sudden federal budgetary surplus has anything to do with keeping up appearances for a potential snap election and this. Funds set aside for the Navy and Coast Guard 2.9 billion + 324 million must be reallocated. Announced on a Friday night at 8:30PM. Maybe no one will notice.

While propping up the budgetary losses in the short term, those same funds could even be promised during an election to some other potential pool of gullible Conservative voters.

(Then quietly cancelled a year later.)

Decima: Majority support Carbon Tax

2008-05-27T20:16:00.003-04:00

More good news for the "strategic genius" Stephen Harper.

According to a Decima poll reported on today by Le Devoir 70% of Canadians would support a carbon tax if the revenues collected were put toward environmental programs.

“Surprisingly, Decima found that 75% of those who currently intend to vote for the Conservative party in the next election support the idea of a tax on carbon that would finance ecological programs.”

The article also reprises the Pembina poll which found similar levels of support for the carbon tax policy which is fiercely opposed by the Conservative government and the NDP.

You have been Punked!

2008-03-27T21:55:00.004-04:00

I could not believe that La Presse actually ran that full front page character assassination on Michael Ignatieff today. I had to read it twice. Ignatieff sipping martinis with friends and plotting the defeat of the party in the next election.

La Presse knew full well that, if Ignatieff said what was reported, there would be a line-up of good Liberals stretching clear across the country ready to give Ignatieff a verbal smack down. It would be wildly dumb --buck-tooth wide-eyed dumb-- because such an attitude makes the rank and file, the people who really believe in the issues advanced by the party, look like total suckers.

Ignatieff recognizes how damaging this would be to his reputation and has resolutely denied the story. And I am guessing he and everyone connected to him hopes it fades away. I am not sure that it will. We might see this again in Harper advertising.

Over the years, the Quebec media has attacked Dion in every way. (I am not worried about him though. He’s a grit. He can take it.) But the crap thrown at Dion can also be thrown at Ignatieff… and maybe a whole lot worse. He might want to watch the company he keeps and how his comments might be interpreted.

Opportunity

2008-03-24T11:56:00.002-04:00

It’s not that I want this to continue playing out on the pages of LaPresse, but I think that the situation within the party in Quebec has come to a head and presents a unique opportunity for Stephane Dion, if he acts quickly and decisively, to make the changes necessary for the long-term viability of the party in Quebec. In other words, rather than portray Steve Pinkus’ interview as a nuisance, it should be perceived as a call to action that requires a swift and full response.

The temptation during a minority parliament is to pass over contentious structural and personel changes in favour of “electoral preparedness.” This might make sense if the Quebec wing were even somewhat prepared for an election. It is not.

That these problems are spilling out into the press clearly makes the argument for the leader’s prerogative to take the steps, even the hard ones, that will resolve the crisis. This is an opportunity.

Hope

2008-03-23T01:54:00.002-04:00

[Insert name here] are not a leader. Barack Obama is not a Leader. Hilary Clinton is not a Leader. You, Liberal voter, and you, progressive, you are not a leader either.

The Conservative attack line used against Stephane Dion so easily applies to anyone that the neoconservative movement disagrees with. Though it means very little, the Republicans are bound to use a variant of this in the upcoming presidential election. It could be Hillary or it could be Barack. The Republicans are also likely to promote divisions within the Democratic party resulting from their leadership contest. And there might be some gullible democrats who will fall for that trap.

I like both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Although at this moment I prefer one just a little bit more than the other, I fully believe both would make a great president. But I fear that following the heat of the Democratic primary, some partisans of the losing candidate will have so firmly convinced themselves in the value of their own choice they will not support the winner. That would be a huge mistake. The George Bush years were a huge mistake. In fact, I would be greatly disappointed in the losing candidate, Obama or Clinton, if they were not to put their tremendous political connections and rhetorical skills to the service of regaining the White House. In my mind, failure in the next election would reflect badly on the whole Democratic leadership.

To me the leader of the party is a vehicle for the issues I would like to see promoted. It takes time to build a winning leadership profile with the voting public (in Canada historically this process takes several years) and the ongoing Democratic race is perhaps already cutting into that.

There is a lot of advertising for the two candidates. This one makes me totally crack up.

Disclaimer: I don’t understand the language in the ad; I just happen to like Bollywood. So the ad might be a bit mischievious without me knowing. I doubt that this would be a good ad for Obama with the larger part of the American voting public, but that is not the audience of this blog.

Fear and Lies

2008-03-23T00:28:00.003-04:00

The Globe and Mail, and in particular reporter Graeme Smith, should be applauded for the excellent series of in depth reports based on interviews with a broad sample of Taliban fighters which will be appearing over the coming week and started today. The interviews can be found online here.

I have had ongoing doubts about the quality of information on Afghanistan available to the Canadian public. Although I don’t believe there is a central conspiracy, these doubts persist because of a confluence of interests from potential misinformation distributed by military industrial lobbyists, to laziness on the part of some in the media who are content to serve merely as the conduits for propaganda, to misplaced patriotic zeal and an irresponsible right wing political movement in the U.S. and Canada ready to fuel the flames of xenophobic terror in order to further their own domestic electoral aims.

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Stephen Harper wanted Canada to invade Iraq.

Yet Jean Chretien and Canadian Liberals were able to stand against the onslaught of neoconservative lies and even turn public opinion which could easily have gone the other way. It takes time to build up a leader like Chretien who can confidently advance Liberal values. Alot of liberals currently seem to forget the hard times while Chretien’s leadership was being established. It also helps in defending Liberal values when we form the government.

We doubted the neoconservative lies about Iraq and the global war on terror. I think we should also be wary of the same with regard to Afghanistan. As the opposition, Liberals can start by exposing misinformation about the Afghan mission and deflating Conservative rhetoric. For instance, global Jihad is a neoconservative boogeyman. Go see the Globe and Mail report.

Poetry Cornered

2008-03-02T14:03:00.008-05:00

This is not a criticism of Michael Ignatieff. I am being playful, interactive. It’s Sunday. But can you really corner poetry? The title of his latest blog post caught my eye Poetry Corner which sounds something like an elementary school educational unit safely stored in the sunny corner of the classroom to be visited on specified days in the curriculum; cute pictures and little poems under a fading sign “Poetry Corner” an edge of which has become untaped from the wall near the neglected end of semester. A special place near the window where flies come to die.

My idiosyncratic negative reaction is directed only toward the title because I liked the rest of the post a great deal. Knowing he shares incidental poems with Zsuzsanna, spotting one on the subway, makes me like him more than before.

No, I am just thinking about the title. The poetry is put in its corner, like a picture-frame which tells the bourgeois “This is art!” because otherwise they would not recognize it. But isn’t good poetry the sort of thing that even if you think that you have safely put it in its place its words escape again?

And I think over again

My small adventures

When with a shore wind I drifted out

In my kayak

And thought I was in danger

Of course, I am just joking around about poetry cornered. I am glad to see in an earlier post on the same blog that Michael Ignatieff reconfirms his support for the leader’s decision not to bring the government down over the budget. The media reports about conflict were quite remarkable. There have always been plenty of ambitious men and women in the Liberal party who know their own mind strongly --I wouldn’t want it any other way. So the fact that there would be disagreement over the timing of the election does not seem out of the ordinary. What is remarkable, though, is that the discussions were leaked to the media. There seem to be some rogue elements willing to trade in bad faith, people whose instincts tend toward the self-serving and the destructive. What do you say to people in that mood?

Anyway, since Michael Ignatieff has set such a good example, here is a poem by Frost that I like and comes to my mind from time to time.

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;

I'll only stop to rake the leaves away

(And wait to watch the water clear, I may);

I sha'n't be gone long. –You come too.

I’m going out to fetch the little calf
That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha'n’t be gone long. –You come too.

War, Peace and the Liberal Tradition

2008-02-16T11:13:00.003-05:00

Does history provide any kind of model or pattern for the present?

Robert Bothwell, in an excellent historical essay which appeared in this morning’s Globe and Mail, sketches the face of the Canadian Liberal tradition toward the perennial issues of war and peace. I read the article more than once.

Bothwell adds detail to the topic which I have been wondering about over the last week and planned to post about, although my attention was directed more towards the future not the past. I have been thinking about the potential unintended consequences of “peace-making,” and military interventions in “failed states.” These two terms are in scare quotes because, to me at least, their potential ambiguity represents a set of pitfalls whose presence may be covered over by seemingly noble though unrealistic intentions.

One danger originates in a darker aspect of the human mind which is the tendency to exaggerate the diabolical qualities and powers of external enemies. Military involvement so easily invites the simple perceptions of good and evil which the media, acting in its role as entertainment, propagates in bold patriotic terms. The linked article provides numerous examples of this from our history. We also have examples from the present debate over Afghanistan. "Support the troops" "Fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them here" etc. But when does bluster start getting in the way of peace-making? I have been wondering about whether the perhaps enlightened intentions of intervening in failed states might always be undermined by other less innocent impulses.

I’ll post more about this some other time, but that is the general direction of my thinking at the moment.

Failed Afghan Policy

2008-02-10T03:46:00.000-05:00

I had not given much thought to Afghanistan before September 11th 2001. Most Canadians would be lying if they said that they did pre 9/11 –lying to themselves. I suspect that the Al-Quaeda attack was not “about” the forced conversion of the world to Islam but rather a response, rightly or wrongly, to perceived abuses of Western influence in the Arab world.

Afghanistan.

The Taliban are a local Afghan phenomenon, largely allied to the Pashtun tribe. It seems the word Taliban means “student” in reference to the Koran and names a religious movement that, as a government, if not completely competent did provide some stability to the country after years of war fueled by foreign interests (Russians, Americans etc). The question I have is: can the Taliban/Pashtun be excluded from the government of Afghanistan? To put the question somewhat in a Canadian context: could we tell Alberta or any other province that they can participate in Confederation only through Liberal representatives? You can have your say but only if they are Conservatives?

Its hard to change the minds of a religious movement. It seems to me that a bad situation would be compounded by excluding the religious/tribal Taliban/Pashtun group from power especially when the exclusion is enforced by Western (colonial) military forces. As I said, I think the 9/11 attacks were in fact motivated by the perception, rightly or wrongly, of abusive Western influence in the Arab world. I would not like the Canadian military “cure” to cause more problems than it is intended to fix.

The counter-insurgency efforts seem to be failing. While I believe that the intentions of those who would have us continue throwing soldiers and money at the Afghan mission are good, I also think that they are wrong. I am not a coward. You are not a coward. I just think that you are wrong and perhaps a bit naive. The goals of the current mission are ineffective and wasteful and I would not have another brave Canadian soldier (or Afghan civilian) die for wishful thinking.

Make a habit of two things: to help or at least to do no harm.

Although Canada has more than done its fair share, it is feasible that our military continue to serve a limited security role in the region while negotiations amongst the different factions of Afghanistan proceed --they better get on with it. But the aggressive counter-insurgency tactics are a failed policy and need to stop.

The Compromise

2008-01-28T22:52:00.000-05:00

The compromise position is to stay in Afghanistan under the current mission mandate until February 2009. Harper’s proposed surge strategy, more troops more equipment, is not a compromise solution; it is an escalation. I fail to see how anyone could imagine that it is not just more of the same, more of a failed strategy on into an indeterminate future.

Certainly, to those in Ottawa, the Manley report must seem a refreshing change of tone in comparison to the barrage of insults and emotional rhetoric that has substituted for argument to date on the part of the Conservatives. But then again anything is better than the jingoism and simple minded pro-any-war statements Harper has made over the last two years. Though I appreciate the Conservatives’ decision to begin speaking like adults, I am not sure it merits special praise, and it should not alter the Liberal policy. The facts have not changed from a week ago. The security situation is deteriorating, NOT improving, and the end game realistically does not involve the eradication of the Taliban but rather a negociated settlement with them.

I would have the international community move toward the end game sooner rather than later, although, with regard to the current aggressive NATO tactics, Canada has done much more than its fair share. If hunting the Taliban is indeed worth continuing, then other NATO nations should be more than willing to step up.

Ending the current mission in February 2009 honors our international commitment while striking a fair compromise position amongst the larger part of public opinion. Maybe not everyone gets exactly what they want, but democratically it should do.

Nuclear Safety: No Leadership

2008-01-12T14:47:00.000-05:00

Stephen Harper and the Conservative party resolutely refuse to accept any responsibility for the shut-down of the Chalk River nuclear facilities which threatened the world supply of medical isotopes.

Rather than show leadership, the Conservatives are trying to shift the blame to someone else. They blame the Liberals, they blame Linda Keen the nuclear safety regulator, heck they even tried to blame the former head of AECL who incidentally was a Conservative appointee with ties to the Conservative party.

Rather than present Canadians with the facts, which given potential public alarm over nuclear safety would seem the right course of action, Conservatives have tried to obscure the facts. Responsibility for the misinformation lies squarely at the feet of Stephen Harper.

Leadership is about more than just ordering people around. And recently (see my last two posts) the Harper Conservatives have demonstrated a flagrant lack of leadership. No Leadership on the ethics of the Mulroney-Schreiber scandal; no leadership on the legitimate economic concerns of the premiers. And if you know what the Conservative positions on the combat mission in Afghanistan or the Environment are, please let me know. Do Conservatives even know what their position is?

All the Conservatives’ talk about Leadership is only half what it seems to be. What about honesty? What about clarity of purpose? What about listening or even just a little executive competence?

Federal-Provincial relations: No Leadership

2008-01-12T13:40:00.000-05:00

Well, Stephen Harper can check "Photo-op with Premiers" off his to-do list. The dinner with the premiers yesterday represents little more than the appearance of consultation i.e. an attempt to "neutralize" the fact that there have been no formal meetings with the premiers since Stephen Harper became prime minister.

Somewhat ominously, the Globe and Mail reports, “The Prime Minister did pledge to write to the premiers with a summary of the meeting and some ideas on how to push issues forward, Alberta's Ed Stelmach said.” Given Stephen Harper’s awkward leadership style this means they will receive a memo essentially saying: Here are your orders from the federal government, now shut-up.

Honestly, why can’t the premiers be more obedient like Conservative federal cabinet ministers. There would be more Unity and Openness in this country if the premiers would just do as they are told. A good premier should be seen and not heard. ; )

Joking aside, the Conservatives are not offering any leadership on the Environment or the Economy. Leaders also listen sometimes.

Mulroney-Schreiber Affair: No Leadership

2008-01-12T13:07:00.000-05:00

In the eyes of a substantial block of voters, there is only one type of Conservative. There is no difference between Mulroney Conservatives and Harper Conservatives. There is one Conservative party --and until recently Stephen Harper was happy with the association. The Mulroney-Schreiber affair when explored will damage the Conservative brand one way or another. It is surprising then that the Conservatives are offering no leadership on the issue.

Admittedly, the Conservative scandal is a bit of a lose-lose situation, having the public associate the Conservative party with secret hotel meetings where ambiguous amounts of untraceable cash traded hands cannot help but sound bad while on the other hand denying the association of Brian Mulroney with the Conservative party is somewhat preposterous. But Stephen Harper is falling out of the tree and he seems determined to hit every branch on the way.

At first, Harper said there was no need for a public inquiry. Then Mulroney said he wanted a public inquiry, then possibly as a consequence Stephen Harper said he also wanted an inquiry. Mulroney later changed his mind and said he did not want an inquiry. Harper also seemed to change his mind and suggested he longer thought an inquiry was necessary. The recommendations offered by the independent advisor, David Johnston, do not provide more clarity because they are not legally binding and do not settle the issue of whether or not there will be a public inquiry. Harper can ignore the suggestions. He could set in motion a full inquiry with a broad scope as of tomorrow or, as is more likely, he will keep stalling. Meanwhile, those in the public and especially those in the media who would gladly defend Harper’s stance --were he to take one-- are left twisting in the wind. Is Mulroney really one of us, a Conservative? Do we need an inquiry in any form? How does this relate to the Conservative party’s position on Accountability? By not deciding, Harper is ultimately jerking around his own supporters and you can only do that for so long.

By offering no leadership, the Conservatives are also green lighting the House of Commons Ethics committee to do anything they want with the issue which, in my opinion, is the bigger side of the lose-lose equation.

The Conservatives have shown no leadership on this ethical issue. But wishful thinking aside, the Mulroney scandal is not going to go away on its own.

Mulroney-Schreiber affair, Public Inquiry (part II)

2007-12-15T23:30:00.000-05:00

Like Adscam, the Mulroney-Schreiber scandal would not have legs if it were driven solely by the opposition. Some are interested in clean government and some have less innocent motivations. Regardless of the spin put out by the Conservatives about Mulroney’s liberal media “tormenters”, the list of people interested in the story is not at all limited to those with sentimental attachments to the Liberals, Bloc or NDP.

There are old and strange stories about how Mulroney gathered delegates to ouster former Tory leader Joe Clark and even more about the following leadership convention. It’s the kind of boozy rumour that comes out after a few drinks and often sounds more like the onset of Korsakoff’s disease than the truth. Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see. But the progressives of Joe Clark’s ilk have been largely frozen out of the current Bush-styled Conservative party, a fact that is not forgotten in the minds of some. And whatever your feelings about the (family values=white power?) Reform party, they were not great fans of Mulroney either and it’s hard not to believe Preston Manning was sincere about cleaning up the lobbying industry and Ottawa graft. Harper’s interests are another issue. Many believe that Harper is primarily interested in staying in power and so the odd on-again-off-again support over the last month for Brian Mulroney I suspect is a reflection of the inner dynamics within his own party more so than a genuine response to the ethical issues. I am not a conservative. I do not know and I do not want to know. The point I am trying to make is that there are people inside and outside the Conservative party who want to hear more about the Mulroney-Schreiber scandal and that interest will move a public inquiry forward.

As I wrote in the first of two posts, I had the good sense to blush during the last election campaign in response to Adscam. The Liberals were put in the penalty box for failing to pay attention to corruption. It’s a good metaphor and one that a lot of people including most Liberals accept. The Liberal government was being careless about minimizing corruption. Although at base, I am still more interested in politics because of issues like global warming and efficient health care delivery, I respect those who are sincerely fighting for clean government whether with their arguments or their votes. For them the Mulroney-Schrieber inquiry is not a vendetta. Why should I argue against them again?

To be honest, I was among those that were content when the story died many years ago because I was just so tired of Mulroney and I thought Liberals and Canada had more important issues to attend to at the time. Granted more incriminating evidence has since been brought to light, still this lazy attitude toward investigating corruption was wrong and is what ultimately led to Adscam. All partisan exaggerations aside, the real problem in Adscam was not that the Liberal party or its membership were corrupt, but rather that there was a pretend-its-not there toleration of illegal activity, a blindness for corruption.

If the lesson learned by lobbyists and public office holders from the Mulroney-Schreiber scandal is that dubious money transactions under the amount of $300,000 are o.k., then the cost of a public inquiry is minimal in comparison to the amount of corruption that we are otherwise inviting upon ourselves.

Mulroney-Schrieber affair, Public Inquiry (Part I)

2007-12-15T14:28:00.000-05:00

I have an admission to make. I was glad several years ago to see Mulroney –and his hyperbole and all his theatrics—exit the Canadian political stage. It was a common attitude, I think. People were fed up with the man, just sick to death of hearing and seeing him. So spending a couple million dollars (the cost of the settlement with the former PM) to have him just go away seemed a small enough price to pay. It had less to do with whether I believed Mulroney had done something illegal or not, and more to do with the fact that I didn’t care. What I cared about more was Chretien’s new government which should, I thought, look toward its own future and what it wanted to accomplish. Why waste energy on something that would be perceived as a Liberal vendetta? Again, as I recall it, this was a fairly common view at the time. Seeing Mulroney on television this week brought this all back to mind.

My admission today is: this way of thinking was lazy and, in a certain sense, corrupt.

Fast forward to Adscam. I don’t think that this would have been half the media event that it became if it was not backed by groups inside and outside the Liberal party. There were some that were motivated by a desire for clean government and some that had less innocent motivations. For the former group, I have nothing but respect on this issue even though it is not what interests me about politics. I am interested in such issues as dealing with climate change and an effective policy in Afghanistan. In this sense, I and a lot of others have unwittingly been part of the problem for those who want clean government. The real issue in Adscam, all partisan exaggerations aside, was not that the Liberal party or its membership were corrupt, but rather that there was a toleration of illegal activity, a blindness for corruption. And the public has spoken on this issue quite clearly.

During the last election, I was in the passenger seat of a car winding myself up into a strong defense of the Liberal record. It was already dark when the driver reached over to turn up the radio to hear the news report about the launch of an investigation into Ralph Goodale’s involvement in a potential budget leak. (Although the allegations against the honourable Ralph Goodale were later disproven, the news report played into the ongoing narrative of Liberal corruption. It was really about Adscam). I had the good sense to blush and a few short words came out of my mouth that do not bear repeating here. The outcome of the false allegations are well known. They served to remind people about Adscam. There was a dramatic shift in the polls over the following week and the Liberals eventually lost the election.

I had the good sense to blush.

Le Canada Isolé

2007-12-09T20:06:00.000-05:00

Le gouvernement Harper semble travailler fort pour isoler le Canada sur la scène internationale.

La Presse: Tous les diplomates, négociateurs et environnementalistes qui ont accepté de parler à La Presse ont en effet soutenu que l’étoile du Canada avait passablement pâli ces dernières années…

« Comme dans toutes les autres sphères internationales, le Canada a toujours eu une importance plus large que nature, précise-t-il [Jacques Bilodeau]. On avait une réputation d’intégrité, de compétence et de sérieux. Si bien que, lorsque le Canada parlait, il était entendu. »

Et aujourd’hui ? Les diplomates ne reconnaissent tout simplement plus le pays.

Un vote pour les conservateurs c’est un vote contre l’environnement et notre bonne réputation.

Dion Blog… Maybe

2007-11-10T15:32:00.000-05:00

My initial reaction to the idea of a Dion blog was negative. But I have been mulling it over for the last week or so because that’s how I think about things and also because Ottlib then Red Tory (Nov. 3rd) brought it up. I wouldn’t agree with everything they write but I have come to respect them enough that it’s probably not a good idea to just dismiss what they are saying completely. So there it is. I hope this admission doesn't cause any head swelling.

The initial image I had was of Dion bickering mindlessly with some anonymous 14 year old conservative troll. How do you respond to crap like “Stephen Harper is not a Leader.” He would end up looking like Peter Van Loan which is to say: not prime ministerial. The leader needs hatchet men and women to deal with the nonsense so he can remain above it. But then again, does the blog need a comment section?

The greatest impact that Dion will have with his principal ideas will still be by delivering them as speeches or by publishing them in the print media like he has done before. Too much could cheapen the newsworthiness. A blog would have less impact although it could fill out his public persona. It would need to be very stylish because blogging is still not mainstreet. If bloggers are honest with themselves they know that outside the smaller world of their friends there are still are a lot of people and of a certain age who view the blogosphere as a geek world populated by lonely socially awkward people. Yes, I know this is largely a stereotype, but it is what it is. When I started this blog, I told a good friend whose reaction was quite telling. She looked at me quizzically (and somewhat disappointedly) and said, “Why the hell would you want to do that?” She meant why would you go online and tell total strangers what you are thinking and feeling. I still like you but you are such a loser sometimes.

Dion definitely has his geeky side there is no pretending. So what I am trying to say is that a potential Dion blog would need to look exceptionally up to date so as not to emphasize possibly negative qualities of his persona. The blog would need to be first of all stylish --if geeky somewhat. Maybe a biweekly or monthly post about events… the backstory from his perspective. It could work to make him more known as a person.

Red Tory in the link above provides some interesting examples from the British political scene.

Oh yeah and by the way, Stephen Harper is not a Leader! ;)

La Nation Québécoise

2007-10-21T11:50:00.000-04:00

Dans un article paru dans La Presse ce matin une excellente question est posé par Mme Marois, chef du Parti Québécois, par rapport à leur projet de loi qui veut créer deux classes de citoyens au Québec : ceux qui parlent français et ceux qui ne le parlent pas. La deuxième classe de citoyens, ceux qui ont de la difficulté avec la langue dominante de la province, la minorité évidemment, seront privé de certains droits constitutionnels comme par exemple le droit de se présenter aux élections en tant que candidat.

Pauline Marois « Dites-moi en vertu de quelle rhétorique le « nous » canadien serait inclusif et le « nous » québécois, exclusif? Ne sommes-nous pas une nation, reconnue par les partis fédéraux? Alors en quoi l’affirmation de nous-mêmes serait-elle un projet ethnique? »

Dans le sens où le terme « nation québécoise » indique un fait sociologique indéniable, je suis d’accord. Cependant, je reconnais le problème de vendre ce concept aux autres provinces canadiennes, qui eux, soupçonnerait peut-être une signification différente. Or en effet, on voit dans les questions de Mme Marois la migration de ce concept vers un autre sens.

C’est bien Mme Marois, elle-même, qui suggère la solution au manque de francisation des nouveaux arrivés au Québec en répondant aux accusations de Phillipe Couillard, ministre Libéral. « C’est vous, monsieur le ministre, qui créez deux classes de citoyens. C‘est vous qui avez coupé dans la francisation des immigrants… » Alors, pourquoi pas remettre les fonds dans ces programmes, Mme Marois? (L’éditorialiste Nathalie Collard p. 14 en arrive à la pareil conclusion).

Il semble assez clair que le PQ va se servir de cette situation à des fins autres que la francisation.

Comment juger la popularité au Québec d’un tel assaut radical aux droits constitutionnels de certains de nos concitoyens? Le meilleur indice se trouve dans le titre d’un autre article sur la même page du journal : « Le PQ prêt à faire tomber le gouvernement demain matin »

While you were sleeping...

2007-10-14T22:16:00.000-04:00

Parliament has not yet reconvened and Stephen Harper has already goofed twice.

The promise to make every government bill an automatic confidence motion will with time look more and more like dumb bluster. Not only does this directly contradict his previous public statements, there are enough democrats in the country (in every political party) who realize that minority parliaments cannot function under such conditions and, if we are to have more minority situations, Stephen Harper’s promise is a dangerous and unworkable precendent. If an election occurs over a minor piece of legislation, the Harper Conservatives’ carry the full responsibility.

Secondly, the claim that striking a committee of unelected private citizens, who already appear to favour an extension of the combat role in Afghanistan, will neutralize the issue is ridiculous not brilliant. Imagine Stephen Harper’s response during an election Leaders debate to questions about the combat role that has resulted in increased levels of violence and instability in Afghanistan. Will he say that a committee is studying the issue and that election campaigns are not the time to talk about policy? Brilliant. Even those media commentators who loudly applaud Stephen Harper’s every word must be getting tired of being jerked around by the erratic Conservative message machine.

Some have argued that our leader Stephane Dion must have far-reaching, bold, even controversial policy pronouncements. Well what do you think his environmental policy is? The debate has not been settled. Stephen Harper’s government is doing everything in its power to not act and in addition to deceive the public about the costs and Canada’s goals. And targets like those contained in the Kyoto treaty are just an initial step. Media commentators can announce that the issue has been neutralized all they want, but does anyone believe them? Does anyone believe Stephen Harper? On the environmental file, we will witness the spectacle of the Liberals once again dragging the Conservatives kicking and screaming into modernity. These sorts of impressions can last for a generation and more.

I guess the Dion teams’ positioning of the Liberal party on the major issues of the day happened while many were sleeping. I am really pleased by the announcement of corporate tax cuts, a policy similar to “socialist” Sweden, to promote economic growth. The Afghanistan position is reasonable. We will end our combat mission in 2009, although further peace-keeping and aid efforts remain possible. It is time that our other partners in the NATO coalition do their part, otherwise it is not much of a coalition really.

In fact, the party has been positioned in what I think of as a policy sweet spot on most of the important issues. And there is no lack of talent in the federal Liberal caucus to get the message out. In the one-on-one debates of televised political discussion panels, the Liberal representatives leave the Conservatives looking like uniformed angry hacks which is why I would prefer at least another month or so for Liberal MPs to rake the Conservatives over the coals and to get Stephen Harper or one of his bumbling ministers on the record about the Conservative money laundering scandal.

Either way, its up to Stephane Dion to call the plays as he will be the leader for at least the next two elections. The talent and ambition of the current crop of MPs as well as the policies the Liberals are advancing, win or lose, make me proud to be a Liberal. Don’t expect an audience for excuses after the next election. Return victorious or on your shields.

Scott Brison and about time

2007-10-03T00:07:00.000-04:00

I was beginning to forget what I liked about Scott Brison so much. He totally clobbered that sack of wind Van Loan on Duffy tonight from start to finish. Scott needs more airtime. We need Scott to have more airtime.

In other news, its nice to hear some positive managed leaks for a change even if they are mixed with negative ones. Check out Diatribes.There will be some housecleaning later in the week?

To present a sense of direction there must be some winners and some losers. Hopefully, those who do not fare as well realize that it is not the end. Its nothing personal and politics is full of well deserved come-backs. Nothing is forever.

We’ll see what happens….

The Leaker has got to Go

2007-09-30T16:24:00.000-04:00

The coverage of the Jamie Carroll affair in the francophone press this week was outrageously bad for the Liberal party. I am not going to link to any of it because its all garbage. The journalists were doing their job trying to create heat, but it was all garbage just the same. The person who initiated the leak of the private conversation must be forced to resign.

Let’s be clear about something to begin with. The alleged “joke” was not funny and no excuses should be made for such a joke. Humour is a social phenomenon and the scripts for what is funny and what is not are implicit. You know it when you hear it. Take for example the n----- word. When Chris Rock uses it: funny (sometimes). When the tall weird guy from Seinfeld uses it: not funny. Dave Chapelle: always funny, etc… You get the picture. An anglophone can tell the same joke word for word as a francophone about francophones and it is not funny. In fact, it is a sure-fire conversation stopper. That’s the script. And in this case even a francophone could not pull off such a quip (I am not interested in exceptions that prove the rule here). Liberal MPs in Quebec are a bit of a survivalist club. They know the script and to survive they know that they must immediately denounce such a joke on the spot without hesitation otherwise they will be wearing the blame for it too.

The person who leaked this story (whether it is true or not) also knew the script. Fortunately, this did not happen during an election. If the person who initiated the leak is left in place, it will happen during an election. Following the reasoning of my post yesterday, for the good of the party this individual must resign or be forced to resign immediately.

After the Turner defeats in the 1980’s, we lost a lot of seats permanently. And now there is more than one party that is all too eager to occupy space vacated by the Liberals. The idea of throwing an election is arrogant in the extreme.

We are asking for peoples’ trust. And that starts by respecting them. The leaker must go.

Tyranny of the Few

2007-09-29T01:11:00.000-04:00

Sometimes those who follow politics too closely forget the simple truth that in the mind of the average voter all Liberals are the same. When adscam hit, we all took it. There were no good Liberals and bad Liberals. The public was not willing to make a distinction between this one and that one. We were all Liberals. The punishment was collective. In Quebec, it has been particularly severe and we are still suffering from the aftershocks.

There are some (a small minority) that never accepted the will of the party when we democratically elected Stephane Dion as our leader. Rather than convince others by the force of their ideas, they are the kind that prefers to hiss and boo those with whom they disagree. And they prefer to speak about leadership for the same reason Harper likes to speak about leadership; it is easier than formulating a real argument, an argument that they could lose.

The leak to the media this week about a private conversation with Jamie Carroll was absolutely shameful. In addition, it was bad politics. To the average voter we are all Liberals. The complaint is ostensibly about Dion, but the average voter hears: Liberals are backstabbing snakes who are only looking out for their own personal interests; they care more about their own egos than the environment or the economy or pulling our troops out of that suckers game in Afghanistan; Liberals can’t be trusted; if a crisis struck the country they wouldn't be able to cope with it because they are so divided; they only want my vote to increase their own self-importance.

The Liberals have had at best a tenuous relationship with Quebeckers for more than a generation now. Publicly attacking the leader will ensure that voters even in the “safe” seats of Montreal will start to seriously consider a new permanent home. To be honest, it has crossed my mind. Those who pretend they are trying to save the party from Dion, if they were to succeed, would find themselves with very little left to save. They will not succeed.

On the positive side, I think that the haters have overplayed their hand this week. Let the backlash begin…

Ideological war on terror,drugs,Islam and common sense

2007-07-09T21:25:00.000-04:00

A report on efforts to eradicate the opium harvest in Afghanistan came out this week in the New Yorker which I would recommend reading. Written very much in the style of that magazine, the article is entertaining as well as informative. The shooting scenes almost read like an engaging piece of short fiction.

What is the position of our government on the opium fields in Afghanistan? Are we helping or making things worse?

A dark glimpse in the Afghan mirror

2007-04-28T19:59:00.000-04:00

Is that really me?

Canada caught a sinister glimpse of itself this week in the mirror of Afghanistan. Distorted only in part by the realities of that violent third world country, the Canadian “War on Terror” in Afghanistan reflects back at us a projection of our own fears and anxieties, wishful thinking, short-sightedness, deceitfulness, sloppy reasoning, delusional self-righteousness and ignorance.

Some of us recoiled. Some have turned away.

Last year I wrote a series of posts on Afghanistan:
A rude awakening
A reasonable criterion for military engagement
Who exactly are the enemies of freedom part I
Who exactly are the enemies of freedom part II
Who exactly are the enemies of freedom part III
What Canada learned in Rwanda

The storyline has become more complicated since then --not because of a change in the Afghan situation but because of us and how the mission has become a partisan fight. Two issues, though, press to the front: the new government’s continued failure to articulate a clear and reasonable set of objectives in Afghanistan and the manipulation of information that Canadians need to judge the success (and appropriateness) of the objectives. I will ask about the objectives of the Afghan mission in a later post, titled: No blank cheques.

With regard to manipulation of information, The Globe and Mail reported this week that detainees handed over by Canadian soldiers to the Afghan authorities had been tortured. When the Harper government denied knowledge of torture, the Globe further published an internal report from the department of foreign affairs that described torture and executions of detainees in Afghan jails. Either the government was negligent by not reading the report or they had read the report and were lying when they said they had no knowledge about prisoner abuse. The foreign affairs document released to the Globe and Mail under the Access to Information Act had been heavily edited, although the Globe had access by another source to the unedited document. The edited version of the report had removed all mention of torture which suggests that the government was actively trying to cover up its mistake of either not reading the report or lying about it. The government further muddied the water by arguing that the detainees were obviously Taliban trying to embarrass Canada by inventing accounts of torture. Yet if these detainees were Taliban, then the government must also explain why these individuals had been released from prison by the time the Globe and Mail had interviewed them. Either the detainees were Taliban, and the prison system had failed by releasing them, or the detainees were innocent and telling the truth. There were also chilling intimations by many of the Harper government’s supporters, that torture was not necessarily a bad outcome. Several contradictory accounts were given by different government ministers of how prisoners are monitored. Some of those accounts must be false. And finally, Stephen Harper wrapped himself in the flag and argued, preposterously, that those who were raising questions about prisoner abuse were disrespecting the Canadian troops and that only his party represented the military.

The government is not being honest with us about what is happening in Afghanistan. Emotional appeals to patriotism are not sufficient. Without accurate feedback on the effects of the military occupation, Canadians cannot judge whether to proceed or withdraw. Insulated from the facts, the mission is nothing more than a reflection of our worst failings.

Prevost

2007-04-21T17:36:00.000-04:00

Addressing climate change poses a variety of challenges, the foremost of which is probably changing attitudes. The Globe and Mail carried a laugh-out-loud-funny article today in the Focus section, called “Kings of the road and their million dollar palaces,” about a sub-culture of super wealthy nomadic seniors who own Prevost buses pimped out as recreation vehicles. And they often travel in packs… yes, gangs of happy retired couples roaming our streets… in buses. One such environmentally destructive “club” brazenly calls themselves the “Prevost Prouds.”

Although I do not think of myself as an environmentalist, my blog, Aarons Beard, began a year ago initially because I was upset about Stephen Harper's cuts –more than a billion dollars-- to environmental spending on alternative energy sources and research into climate change and adaptation established previously in the Liberals’ widely acclaimed green budget. I was concerned that these reductions would be forgotten if some people did not speak up for them. As it turns out, I need not have worried. Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” hit the theaters almost immediately after and polling consistently indicates that dealing with global warming has become a priority for a significant number of voters. Far from being prescient, it appears I am a child of the times. Since then, Stephane Dion was elected leader of the Liberal party and, in reaction, the Conservative government largely reinstated the Liberal programs, albeit with less money. I am not happy about the inadequate absolute bare minimum strategy of the Conservatives.

As for Prevost buses, it should come as no surprise that even old people like the “bling” too. The retrofitted Prevost costs 1.5 million dollars plus and may be ordered with such necessities as marble floors, gold inlaid wash basins and a defibrillator. A retired couple can travel in a vehicle that would otherwise seat 56 and gets six or seven miles to the gallon. One couple described tows a Hummer behind their bus in case they want to explore smaller roads. The article, by Alan Freeman, is full of similar details on this exclusive sub-culture that left me shaking my head.

I really have no ill will towards these people. I am sure I would like many of them if we crossed paths. And the essential difference between Prevost owners and many others is a bank account containing a few million dollars. The desire for bling, a demonstration of affluence, has had many other names, but is, I suspect, as old as mankind and is not going to go away. The Prevost fetish is symbolic of sunny America: fat, successful and self-contented. The America of the green light. And why not. Behind the purchase of an RV Prevost bus is a web of life experiences and culture wide attitudes that will challenge effective action on reducing carbon emissions for a long time.

Seniors in luxuriant buses is another example of a problem that the military might not be able to solve. My next post will be about the goals of the Afghanistan mission titled, “No blank cheques,” and will appear soon.

A hunger to win in Central Nova

2007-04-14T18:08:00.000-04:00

When I wanted to help out with the provincial election campaign at the age of sixteen, my father drove me out of our riding to another one where he knew the Liberals would not win. He handed me over to someone he knew saying, in essence, here’s a healthy young pair of legs to run around for you, but I want them back after the campaign so try not to let the kid get lost.

On the way over my dad told me that it was a tough riding, the Liberals had no chance of winning it and not to repeat to anyone what he had just told me. Although the people in the riding knew quite well that they wouldn’t win, it’s not something that they would want to hear said out loud. Working the door-to-door in a poor, politically unfriendly riding, he argued, would force me to become a real grit, teach me not to take voters for granted and give me a hunger to win. We lost. Big time.

There was one upset victory in that riding a couple of elections later. I don’t live there anymore.

I won’t pretend that the dynamic in the riding of Central Nova is the same, though I suspect that telling the good Liberals there they can’t win would not be something they would welcome hearing publicly. Who knows what might happen in the next election against Peter MacKay.

On the other hand, I was struck by May saying yesterday that she did not want to be the Ralph Nader of Canadian politics, shaving off far-left votes from the Democratic candidate, Al Gore, and allowing a George W. Bush victory. The United States would be in a much better place right now if the divisive, hyper-partisan George War Bush had not been elected.

There is a good chance that strategic Green votes in the rest of the country could tip the next federal election in our favour.

Despite the full blast melodrama coming out of the media over this, each side of the argument about Central Nova is a respectable calculation of risk. Maybe it's better not to rush to judgement on Stephane Dions' leadership just yet.

Le Devoir on Daniel Paille

2007-04-12T23:14:00.000-04:00

Even Le Devoir, the Quebec newspaper with sovereignist sympathies, highlighted this morning the bizarre choice of Daniel Paille as the investigator into the polling activity of the Chretien government.

The first sentence reads (translation mine; read the original): “The Conservatives in Ottawa have retained the services of a battle hardened souvereignist to hunt down the federal Liberals” The article goes on to ask all the obvious questions about conflict of interest that you would see in the anglophone press, the obvious questions that the Conservatives did not think through. An anonymous conservative is quoted as saying: “Let’s just say that it (the announcement) didn’t come out the way we had thought it would.”

The article is quite damning and ends with a reminder for those who forgot who Daniel Paille is: “Daniel Paille is a person who got a lot of attention during his short political career in Quebec. Notably, he let the mayor of Montreal, Pierre Bourque, know that he (Paille) was opposed to the opening of a daycare across the street from his residence and he did this in a letter written on official stationary from the ministry of Industry, Commerce and Technology which was his department at the time. Later, he was forced to apologize to the national assembly. […] He was also the father of the controversial Paille plan to assist the start of new businesses. Due to the bankruptcy of more than a quarter of the businesses that benefitted from the plan, the Quebec treasury lost 116.5 million dollars.”

Michael Fortier is in good company. Paille certainly sounds like an Alberta Conservative. ;)

I have a great deal of respect for many "separatist" politicians. There is nothing wrong with a sovereignist serving in the government or heading public inquiries. Quebec would collapse otherwise. But then again, I don’t think anyone in their right mind is suggesting that sovereignists should be excluded from public office. The context of the investigation into the polling practices of the federal government during the period that includes the referendum is however altogether a different thing. The character and history of the candidate who leads the investigation, which in any event is unnecessary because the Auditor General has already investigated the matter, should not allow the perception of bias.

If Michael Fortier is selling it, don't buy it. Vendu tel quel.

Bravo Le Devoir!

Now let's get back to something that really matters like health care.

Stop!

2007-04-11T21:44:00.000-04:00

"Money and the ethnic vote," said Jacques Parizeau

Here we go all over again.

Take the person who dislikes you the most, your rival at work, the nagging relative that never thought much of you, the disapproving neighbor, the person at school who is always making negative remarks about you and have them review your work and publicize their findings. Regardless of what you did, they will make it sound bad. The minor error will become the catastrophic flaw and evidence of loose morals. The complex decisions will be reduced to simplistic and factually inaccurate condemnations.

That is what Michael Fortier, the Conservative muck-raker in Quebec and backroom boy, has announced today. A separatist, Daniel Paillle, from the old Parizeau cabinet will be investigating the polling practices of the federal government within a very limited time frame that almost exclusively targets the Chretien years. The Parizeau government undertook extensive public consultations at the taxpayers expense. They polled. The separatists even used public funds, stashed away for such an occasion, to prop up the Canadian dollar during the referendum. And don’t get me started about the greatest fraud in a democracy, the votes from “ethnic” ridings that were tossed in the garbage on referendum night.

Let’s be clear. There is no impartiality in this investigation. It is not about improving government. It is an attempt to revive the ancient grudge once again. And it will cost $750,000 if not more to indulge in this nakedly partisan manuever. Harper can then commission a poll to see if this "strategy" was effective.

The federal government polled Quebeckers extensively about the clarity act during this period, the courageous legislation that formalizes how to deal with the eventuality of a sovereignist victory in a referendum. The separatists will have a field day attacking Canada with this. The Conservatives really do not know what they are doing if they think that the criticism will be contained to the Liberals. The separatists want to separate from Canada (including english Conservatives from Alberta).

The fiercely emotional allegations…the pettiness…the half-truths…

Here we go all over again.

Stop!

Stop with the tricks and do something real about the environment or health care.

Eastertide Reveries, part Two

2007-04-08T20:54:00.000-04:00

A more appropriate title perhaps would be: Bogged Down in Palestine.

On the previous post, Reveries part One, I argued that, for good or ill, religious institutions are able to, maybe even prone to, protect and structure nascent political movements especially in the face of oppressive regimes. I think that this applies to the Middle East in ways that I am not ready to defend.

Yesterday, when I reread what I had written for this second post in the series, I felt that it was at once too simplistic and too heavy. Other serial posts that appeared on this blog were easier to construct. Though I am tempted to post what I wrote with revisions and just let it all hang out so to speak, I would only be adding to the noise. It’s a consolation to think that far better people than I have been bogged down in Palestine.

The Eastertide reveries were a way into a number of topics that have been troubling me lately. On the way I did come across interesting material I was not aware of before, notably by Scott Atran

Posts on religion in the Middle East will appear in the future, but at the moment I will only venture to say that I am a strong supporter of the state of Israel, if not necessarily the policies of all of its elected political parties. And, I suspect that resolving numerous problems in the region would be facilitated by paying close attention to how religion organizes the lives of its adherents, or to put it the other way around, how religion is structured as a response to the environmental challenges of its members and to the human mind.

The parts of the Eastertide reveries dealing with Afghanistan and Canadian politics will be posted separately later.

Which in the mean time leaves only… to pray for peace in Jerusalem.

Eastertide Reveries, part One

2007-04-01T18:28:00.000-04:00

I am sitting outside in the sun without a coat. The air is cool, but relieving relative to what came before. Whatever else this time of year may be, it is not winter.

For those of us who identify Christian, it is Eastertide, roughly, which corresponds roughly to what no one can deny is spring: more comfortable temperatures, new leaves and grass, the beginning of a new cycle. I am glad to be comfortable outdoors again, comfortable and in a frame of mind to think loosely about the future but without the neurotic compulsion of putting unreasonable demands on it.

I am having a spring reverie on a theme that comes out of Africa blows through the middle east and Afghanistan then returns home to Canada and to Quebec and Montreal. It is about democracy and alternatives and the beginnings of new cycles, mundane and not so mundane.

Africa

What comes before the beginning of my reverie is not so pleasant. In Zimbabwe, the leader of the political opposition, was detained recently by the police and beaten. He has opposed the corrupt government of President Robert Mugabe whose policies have led the country to economic ruin. The issues causing unrest are common ones: corruption, distribution of food and wealth, education etc.

While the opposition leader is beaten and should probably be fearing an imminent assassination, the Roman Catholic Arch-Bishop, Pius Ncube, has been permitted to criticize the government, even going so far as to promote a revolution to remove Mugabe, with impunity.
A similar situation many will remember existed in South Africa where the Anglican Arch-Bishop, Desmond Tutu, criticized his government’s policy of Apartheid both within the country and effectively around the world while the future president of post-apartheid South Africa, Nelson Mandela, was rotting in jail.

The juxtaposition of reactions to secular or religious opposition is not cut and dry and I am not trying to suggest that it is. History provides innumerable accounts of violent and bureaucratic suppression of religious opposition to power. All I am trying to point to is that some individuals have been able to parlay their spiritual authority into a limited form of free speech. You may kill a priest, but you should think twice about the consequences of killing a “holy” person.

Historically, religion has often played a role in creating space for opposition, harbouring alternatives to the current status quo which may lead to reforms or revolutions. The full implications of any specific instantiation of religious opposition can be viewed as good or bad. The spectrum of political impulses protected by the church in different places at different times and by different religious sects, mocks the attempt to classify them universally as simply right or left wing. Religion can also be turned to amplify the contemporary power structure though it always retains the potential to transform into a vehicle for change –independently about how you or I may feel about those changes. Religious institutions are far less immutable than they may frequently pretend and people are, I believe, generally promiscuous about who delivers solutions to worldly challenges such poverty, education, or access to medical treatment.

I am religious, but don’t ask me to defend all religious views. I am generally in agreement with the opposition of arch-bishops Desmond Tutu and Pius Ncube to the their respective governments, although this may mask other opinions these men may hold that may be unacceptable to me as a Western moderate, such as misogyny, homophobia or virulent anti-Semitism. The overriding issue of providing an alternative to the status quo in their respective countries in a sense temporarily hides these other issues. A case where I personally disagree with specific aspects of religious opposition to the status quo is in the Middle East. Variants of the Muslim faith, turned to the task of opposing the political status quo, harbour political impulses that I do not support at all. I will talk about that in my next post: Eastertide Reveries, part Two. It will build on the point that I have tried to make here that, for good or ill, religious institutions are able to, maybe even prone to, protect and structure nascent political movements especially in the face of oppressive regimes.

Flux in the RCMP and Stockwell Day

2007-03-30T21:45:00.000-04:00

Questions of serious abuse of power have been swirling around the leadership of the RCMP during the last year. The direction of the federal election last winter was decisively affected by the unorthodox intrusion of the RCMP into the campaign. The RCMP announced by way of a fax to a member of the NDP that there was an investigation into potential misconduct on the part of then Finance Minister Ralph Goodale. The investigation later cleared him of any wrong doing, but only well after the campaign had delivered a Conservative victory. The relation between the announcement and the change in favour toward the Conservatives in the polls was clear. Later this past year, the head of the RCMP was forced to resign in light of misrepresentation he had made to the House of Commons with regard to the disgraceful Maher Arar case. The misrepresentation left the definite impression that the RCMP was trying to cover-up the mishandling of information that led to the deportation of Maher Arar to Syria where he was tortured. And this week shocking allegations were made in front of a House of Commons committee that nepotism and fraud may have been comitted in the administration of the RCMP retirement plan. Those who spoke out against the abuse of power were silenced and punished by the RCMP leadership in a further story of institutional corruption and cover-up.

Clearly, the perception of the RCMP needs to be redeemed in the eyes of the public as well as the rank and file members of this organization which is intimately tied to Canadian history and identity. An investigation must be launched to root out the wrong-doers and more importantly re-examine the structure of our national police force. Good things may come from this investigation.

BUT the minister charged with overseeing the RCMP, Stockwell Day, is currently under the cloud of his own scandal. New evidence has surfaced that he may have criminally misused public funds. The RCMP are currently deliberating whether to proceed with an criminal investigation (see the documents)

I previously suggested that the only honourable thing to do on Stockwell Day's part would be to step aside so that there would not be the perception that he somehow influenced the course of this examination of his potiential misconduct. I even suggested that he resign last Monday which with the media attention focused on the Quebec provincial election would have allowed him to make this move quietly. He did not do the honourable thing.

As the situation now stands, the RCMP is looking at investigating him while he is determining how to investigate the RCMP. The conflict of interest is patent and reflects poorly on both parties. Stockwell Day must resign his minsterial position overseeing the RCMP for his own reputation and for the reputation of the RCMP.

Why I voted

2007-03-26T20:51:00.000-04:00

Faced with the ballot my knee jerk reaction kicked in and I voted for the PLQ this morning. All the best to Jean Charest, I hope that he delivers this time. Given reports of low voter turn-out, I suspect that the PLQ will do rather well tonight because, for whatever reason, Quebec Liberals get out and vote.

Charest had to confront an interesting problem during the election with Mario Dumont’s vague concept of autonomy. It appealed to me as it does I suspect for many people because it represents popularly and in the short term "none of the above" with regard to separation. The real challenges for Quebec, health care access, competitivity, educational funding, an overwhelming national debt to name a few, have been masked by an old and bitter language (religious/class) dispute. Separation… another exhausting referendum… vote for us just to avoid another referendum… good Quebeckers only vote for us… traitor… faux frere… I am tired of it all. Of course the hard core federalist says: eventually autonomy will take a concrete form and you don’t know what you are getting into. Well, I respond: that is not what it means today. It means, to me at least, a rejection of the never ending talk about the constitution, language rights, the manifest destiny of the nation.

And then I voted Liberal… sigh.

Now as for how this will help Harper. I suspect it won’t or least far less than the great manipulator might think. The vote buying was a cheap trick and I don’t think many are grateful for receiving what Stephen Harper has convinced most Quebeckers is, in any event, owed to them. In addition, Harper's comments about how he would only negociate with a federalist provincial government made it apparent that Harper is not adept in Quebec politics.

Pssst… Steve Harper if you are listening. Is it alright if I call you Steve like your friend George Bush does. Steve, you will deal with whoever we decide to elect as our government. Period.

Stephen Harper’s overtly nationalist Bloc imitation attack ads certainly did not help the Liberals in this election and may have much to do with my feeling of being drawn back into the federalist/separatist vortex. As a Quebec federalist, the ads gave me the creeps for reasons which the creators of the ads could probably better explain.

Stockwell Day

2007-03-22T22:38:00.000-04:00

http://www.liberal.ca/news_e.aspx?type=news&id=12598

This is an important isssue. The current Minister of Public Security, Stockwell Day, is responsible for the oversight of the RCMP. In light of new evidence that Stockwell Day may have broken the law and misused public funds, the RCMP must investigate. The only honourable option within the Canadian tradition of responsible government available to the Minister overseeing the RCMP is to step aside from his post while the investigation is undertaken. Anything less than the Minister removing himself from this conflict of interest, as overseer of the RCMP and under investigation by the RCMP at the same time, will in perception and in fact be wrong.

The minister needs to step aside. If he has done nothing wrong which is hopefully the case, he will not be charged.

The minister must step aside by Monday, March 26th.

Otherwise, questions need to be asked about his influence on the investigation into his potential crimes.

Violent Conflict -- What can Canada do about it?

2006-07-29T15:57:00.000-04:00

Two historical pieces of paper can be profitably reviewed in the light of the Liberals current deliberations on Canada’s future foreign policy. The first was a diplomatic entente and the second a personal letter. The image of Neville Chamberlain arriving back from Germany foolishly waving a non-aggression pact signed with Hitler is not easy to forget. It is exhibit A in the case against appeasement. Chamberlain was tricked by an aggressive enemy intent on world domination. The other piece of paper was a letter sent to president John F. Kennedy by Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban nuclear missile crisis. The public position of the Politburo, the governing body of communist Russia, was ominous and unyielding, but Khrushchev’s letter suggested a more moderate and conciliatory approach to the crisis. There was a battle between the hardliners and the moderates in the Soviet regime which resulted in widely conflicting messages. Wisely, JFK decided to respond to the moderate message and ignore the other.

Parallels between historical and current events are, under the best of circumstances, tenuous, but which of these two pieces of paper is instructive in the present situation? Potentially both are.

Chamberlain failed to recognize his enemy as we should not fail to recognize the blood-lusting extremism in Al Qaeda and Hezbollah. Kennedy astutely supported the message of moderation and politically undermined the posturing of the war-mongering faction in the communist government. Today, in the Middle East and Afganistan we also face the threat of violence from those who want war. But there are also moderates in these regions as there are moderates in every country. This is a dependable feature of human nature.

Our role should be to support the moderates with money, media attention, and military backing if necessary at every opportunity and to humiliate and sideline those who commit violence. The moderate voices in these countries understand the particularities of their own political situation and general culture far better than we can. If we listen, they will tell us what they need and when. Yet this support should never become merely a dogmatic and simple minded picking of sides. Moral clarity will not be achieved by designating one religion or ethnic group as angels and another as devils. For example, the spasm of Israeli rage in the past few weeks is understandable, but I fear that the excessive reaction, bombing Lebanese infrastructure and the indiscriminate terrorization of the general population, is a grave tactical error since they are also embarrassing the promising newly elected government of Lebanon which is pro-Western. Israel is unwittingly entrenching the ascendancy of the terrorist Hezbollah over a legitimate democratic movement.

Some home-grown observers are claiming that Canada is too small to make a difference in the world. We are a bit-player, a natural follower, insignificant. The partisanship of this feigned weakness is patent. I suspect that these same commentators will also loudly applaud Stephen Harper’s every burp and sneeze on the international stage as a sign of Canada’s strength and new found power since the Conservatives have taken charge. The shame is on you for sneering at our country for political expediency. We are not a superpower, but as a member of G8, NATO, a leader in the english Commonwealth and the french Francophonie, plus a frequent seat at the U.N. security council we are far from impotent.

So where do we exert our influence such as it is? This week, I was planning a long post on specific conditions that the Liberal party could insist upon with regard to further support of the mission in Afganistan. But this was largely done (and written better) by two editorials that appeared in the Toronto Star this week.

editorial 1 editorial 2

I also recommend reading recent articles by CBC columnist Jim Reed. At the moment I will only emphasize the observation that the solution to the violent conflicts in Afghanistan and the Middle East is principally political, not military. George War Bush and Stephen Harper have adopted the nihilistic position that a new world order can be imposed by a bloody purge of opposition. Other grander historical failures may suggest otherwise (Robespierre, Stalin, Mao, Vietnam).

My next post will be in September.

What Canada learned in Rwanda

2006-07-23T22:36:00.000-04:00

Talking to a friend a couple weeks ago about André Boisclair, I admitted that both the PQ and Quebeckers in general were better off with Bernard Landry. Although I firmly disagreed with the former premier on a number of issues and in particular on Quebec separation, my impression of him was reinforced when, this morning, I read an editorial he had penned for Le Devoir.

(my translation; read the original) “Rather than devote enormous resources to maintain a military force –I don’t see what it is supposed to defend us from or who we can use it to attack– should not Canada set an international example with regard to the evacuation of those in distress, chez nous and elsewhere, and become a leading power in humanitarian relief.” Not to burden this statement with meanings he did not intend, Landry expresses a typically Quebecois attitude toward Canada. Many Quebeckers identify as Canadian when looking at our country from the outside in, taking the perspective of how foreigners view us. During the 1995 referendum, the sovereignty campaign promised Quebeckers they would be able to keep their Canadian passports if they voted yes. I am not sure how that would have worked in practice, but in terms of building national unity, this is a part of the Quebecois psyche which federalists should recognize for what it is, a sign of goodwill toward our country even from those now attracted by the separatist option. We are not going to change the minds of committed individuals like Bernard Landry, but the Liberals, who need to rebuild bridges with moderate francophones, would do well to hear this and develop a humane and effective foreign policy that could sustain a lasting coalition with centrist anglophones. Not many Quebeckers would be interested in a reconstituted British empire euphemistically called by neo-conservatives, the military Anglosphere: England, the U.S. Australia and Canada, led by George War Bush.

If we want to rebuild national consensus, a good place to start is with our respected tradition of peacekeeping. The most important challenge to the traditional Canadian role comes from the experiences of our troops in Rwanda. In 1994, extreme members of the Hutu majority committed genocide against the Tutsi minority. Limited by the number of soldiers and a U.N. mandate that did not permit engagement, the peacekeepers were left to observe helplessly the brutal massacre of approximately 800,000 people. Canadian Lt. General Romeo Dallaire, who headed the peace keeping mission in Rwanda at the time, has argued credibly that efforts like jamming the radio stations by which the genocide was largely organized and increasing the size and ability to respond of the peace keeping mission would have averted or at least greatly diminished the disaster. Despite Dallaire’s warnings, the international community allowed the genocide to proceed. Dallaire, now a Liberal senator, has worked to raise consciousness of what occurred and how peacekeeping as it initially evolved to deal with the Suez crisis in the 1950’s failed in Rwanda. The mandate of the intervention needs to suit the context of the mission. Or as Bill Graham stated while he was responsible for the mission as Minister of Defense, “to be effective and successful, today’s peacekeepers often need more flexible, robust mandates and rules of engagement and the capabilities to enforce them”

The situation in Afghanistan is certainly not the same context as Rwanda. If the Taliban were prone to commit genocide they would have done so already when they were the government. No one, I think, is seriously proposing that Afghanistan will repeat Rwanda in that respect. We are in Afghanistan because a significant proportion of the population is convinced that if the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, it would be a threat to us in the West. It would be disingenuous to suggest that the level of international interest presently solicited by the Afghanistan situation is not primarily selfish.

I have written a series of posts on Afghanistan which I will conclude this week with a reasonable position suitable to the context of Afghanistan that the party could defend. These are discussion points. I am eager to hear moderate alternatives.

The most important and probably most controversial condition I will suggest is to create a mandate that permits our troops to respond to violence, but does not endorse the aggressive hunting of Taliban. The dubious neo-conservative manufacture of threat must end.

Who exactly are the enemies of freedom? part III

2006-07-09T23:55:00.000-04:00

This is the third and final section of a longer post which began with the ancient advice: Make a habit of two things –to help, or at least to do no harm.

In the first section, I linked to an article that appeared in La Presse. Here is my own translation of an excerpt of that article for those who cannot read french:

…soldiers enter a house after kicking down the front door. Some women and an old man come out. The man who has a long white beard is insulted. A soldier undertakes to make the man understand the way he sees things.
“It’s too bad for you if you don’t want to tell us where the Taliban are hiding” he says looking into the old man’s eyes. “We are going to kill them. We are going to blow things up and shoot everything. Is that what you want? So just go on saying nothing.”

I am white and Christian, but I can’t help wondering how my own grandfather would have reacted to a gang of nervous young soldiers with machine guns breaking into his house and threatening him in this way. My grandfather is remembered as a somewhat cranky old grit farmer and was fond of the saying: Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see.

Can we rely on the quality of the information that we are getting out of Afganistan. We are guaranteed to hear about the Canadian casualties. And we should hear about these brave men and women who are prepared to risk so much for their country. Their families in Canada will ensure that they receive the respectful coverage that they deserve. But otherwise we, and the journalists who inform us, are separated from Afganistan by a chasm of culture, geography, and language. Western journalists that are presently in this extremely dangerous country are not likely to stray too far from the protection of our troops, a factor that will be reflected in what they report and what they are allowed to see.

The effort to disarm the citizens of this deadly country makes me think again about Charleton Heston’s passionate defense of the NRA and his now famous challenge that, if “they” wanted his gun, “they” would have to wrest it “…out of (his) cold, dead hands.” And yet there is considerable vested political interest on the part of the Bush administration and now Stephen Harper as well that news reports out of Afganistan be favourable to the current aggressive counterinsurgency tactics. The embattled government of Afganistan also has an interest not to alienate the military and financial support coming from the West upon which it depends for survival. Because of this confluence of interests, we might be concerned that any Afgan who is killed, regardless of the reason, will be called a Taliban terrorist. They probably don’t carry a membership card in their wallet and Western journalists just don’t have the resources in this foreign country to know the truth.

The propaganda surrounding the Iraq invasion is telling. Like a lot of people, I am pissed off about being lied to by George War Bush. I am so pissed off words almost fail. Lies, lies, lies… There were no weapons of mass destruction! No Al Qaeda in Iraq before the invasion! The intelligence was constructed to mislead the public. Steve Harper's new friend, George War Bush, knows how to look at someone straight in the eye and lie. Is he really interested in keeping an open border with Canada? The paranoia pervading the United States that would require passports at the border is drawn from the same well of largely irrational fear that reelected George War Bush. George Bush has intentionally fed these fears to further his right wing agenda. And this is an election year in the United States. It appears that Steve Harper has similar designs. But by playing along with American hysteria, it is difficult to argue against the passport requirements. It would be best for Steve if the public accepted it as just another sacrifice in the war on fear. Unfortunately for him, the provincial premiers just won’t let it go as they continue in their efforts to make republican legislators from states bordering on Canada to see past the fear to the economic bottom line.

Irrational fear is also an enemy of freedom.

If you have been reading my posts, it should not surprise you that I am in favour of the deployment of troops in Afganistan provided certain conditions are met, a topic I will take up in my next week’s post, “What Canada learned in Rwanda.”

Who exactly are the enemies of freedom? part II

2006-07-02T12:07:00.000-04:00

This is the second part of three in a post which began with the ancient advice: Make a habit of two things –to help, or at least to do no harm.

Voters have given the Liberal party a timeout, an opportunity to do a little soul-searching and to come up with some good policy. Currently, the party has no executive control over the Afganistan mission and Stephen Harper has announced that he does not feel bound by the will of the House of Commons. So whatever anyone else may be saying, there is no urgency for Liberals to rush into a decision that may be regretted later. The party needs to take the long view and come up with the ideas that everyone can agree upon in a future election and potentially as a government that does control the Afgan mission.

My gut feeling is that, unless the Afganistan mission takes a dramatic turn, it will not play that much of a role in the next election and will be largely overshadowed by other issues like global warming, illegal party fundraising and the fiscal imbalance. If I am right, this will not be a vote getter for anyone, but it is worthwhile coming up with a long-term national policy that our troops can rely upon when they are sent abroad or planning new missions.

Canadians have come to expect that our government should play a leadership role internationally when it comes to peacekeeping. There is an argument going around that because our allies, and in particular our military allies in NATO, are involved in a mission, Canada needs to “step up” as well. Probably moderate parliamentarians in our ally nations are persuaded in part by the same logic: if all my friends are doing it, I should probably be doing it too. At a certain point though the “our allies need us” gambit starts sounding a lot like a game of chicken among a group of otherwise individually responsible teenagers. Its o.k. to question the wisdom of excessive violence even if it has international momentum and no head. In this case, the aggressiveness of the tactics used in Afganistan may undermine the potential benefits of intervention and all our good intentions.

The Toronto Star published an editorial last week that uses some of these questionable arguments.

“The Liberals will not advance Canada's interests, or their own, by giving the impression that they waver when bullets start flying and the going gets tough. Canada must stay the course. Our values are on the line. Our allies are counting on us. So are the Afghan people.”
Toronto Star editorial

It’s a nice bit of rhetoric, but I am not convinced that hitching a ride on George Bush’s increasingly lame-duck presidency is good foreign policy.

As close neighbours and friends, Canadians know and admire the essential American message of democracy and freedom. Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and JFK among other great names are heroes for us as well. Something we are well situated to do as friends and allies is to moderate this message to the world when at times it becomes distorted by the vagaries of their own internal politics. George Bush will not last forever. It’s not a role we can play because of our big army. We are able to effect the direction of the mission because, like those overseas American tourists who pose as Canadians by pinning or sewing our flag to their clothing and belongings, the U.S. government wants to trade on our excellent international reputation to legitimize the mission. But a good name is not something to be bought or sold.

I have always felt that the strength of the Liberal party is in building consensus of the kind that lasts for decades and eventually takes root in all parties. Grand ideological speeches sound hollow to us. And generally Liberals have proceeded by listening to all sides and making decisions as the context suggests, recognizing that there is a fine line between leadership and obstructing democracy. So it is important to note that there is widespread concern, in Quebec especially, about the excessive use of force against the Afgan people. Is it not counter-productive?

The anonymous Star editorial suggests that anyone who disagrees with Stephen Harper’s war is a coward – or can be perceived as a coward. It’s another way of telling people to shut-up and just do exactly what George Bush wants us to do. If this is at all representative of local attitudes, then some Toronto Liberals are wasting a lot of effort trying to shut down discussion at a moment in the history of the party when they should rather be listening.

***

The third section of this post which will appear soon will ask about the quality of information we are getting out of Afganistan.

Who exactly are the enemies of freedom?

2006-06-25T15:28:00.000-04:00

Make a habit of two things — to help, or at least to do no harm.

La Presse article 1

I include a comment from LeDevoir. You may not agree with all of it, I don’t, but it’s a rather Quebecois piece of analysis.
Le Devoir article

Since it was the Liberal prime ministers, Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, who initially committed our troops to Afganistan, Liberals should have no fear asking about the progress of the mission. Is it meeting its objectives? Do the objectives need to change since the Liberals first sent the troops? Are we helping or doing harm?

Who are the enemies of freedom?

Al Qaeda flew planes into the World Trade Center which ostensibly triggered the invasions of Afganistan and Iraq. As it turns out, the American intelligence reports were wrong and there were no Al Qaeda in Iraq before the Bush led invasion. No one would deny that Al Qaeda is in Iraq today. Al Qaeda were definitely in Afganistan where the Taliban, a distinctively Afgan phenomenon, permitted Al Qaeda to operate within its borders with impunity. The original American mission as it was popularly presented was to capture members of Al Qaeda and in particular their leader, Osama bin Laden. The Taliban were an obstacle to that goal and if they had turned over bin Laden, the invasion would never have occurred. Over time, though, the emphasis in the war has slowly but clearly shifted to a new goal: destroy the Taliban.

I first heard about the Taliban in a New Yorker article that appeared, I believe, in the summer leading up to the September 11th attacks. I was struck by the story of how a Taliban mob had beat a well known Afgan poetess nearly to death in the local market for the crime of lifting the hood of her obligatory bhurka to look briefly in her money purse. Although the harshness of the Taliban repression was shocking to Western readers of the New Yorker, there were no plans to occupy the country at that time. Depending on whether you ask a woman, a homosexual, or a person of colour we don’t have to look too far back into the bigoted past of North America to find examples of when the violation of certain social taboos particular to our culture was met with equally grotesque acts of repression. We manage to muddle through on our own. It is doubtful that a violent foreign military occupation would help that process.

Google search: taliban
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/144382.stm
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9610/05/taleban/
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,175372,00.html
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/taliban.html

Most accounts report that the Taliban were tolerated by their countrymen because they brought peace to a war torn nation. It may be hard for us in the West to understand, but then again most of us have not lived through twenty years of war between competing local clans, vicious opium smuggling gangs and several foreign interests, including the Russians and the Americans. The Americans equipped the Taliban among other groups of “freedom fighters” to push back the communists. After the communist retreat, factional war intensified until the Taliban restored order. Interestingly, during their tenure as the government of Afganistan, besides bringing peace, the Taliban to their credit significantly reduced the volume of the opium trade. The American invasion of Afganistan however reversed this trend and opium production is running again at an all time high, bringing an influx of hard cash to a region with extreme and violent politics.

When I read about Afganistan and the Taliban, I have to be honest, I feel completely out of my depth. I wish more Canadians, especially our politicians and media editorialists, would admit publicly to the same.

Someone who can rightly claim to have a reliable working knowledge of the complexities of the situation is the democratically elected president of Afganistan. He believes that the excesses of the Western crusade “Operation Enduring Freedom” waged against the Taliban are not helping. Violence is on the increase. And the aggressive tactics of the American lead war is trampling on the sovereignty of the legitimate government. The result is a potential backlash with people who look, at least to their fellow countrymen, a lot more like patriots than terrorists fighting to liberate their country from foreign domination.
La Presse article 2

Who are the enemies of freedom in the West? They are the train bombers in Madrid and London. And, if the allegations are true, then the frustrated Toronto bombers as well. Yet no evidence appears to link directly the Toronto conspiracy with the Taliban in Afganistan. And then there is the group of black men arrested in the U.S. last week who had no bomb material or money or plans. They were not short on talk, though, it seems. Besides being a sign of desperation from a tired Bush administration scared by their prospects in the upcoming midterm congressional elections, I suspect that the motivations of these “terrorists” have almost nothing to do with Afganistan and almost everything to do with the idiosyncracies of American race politics. It is not clear to me that lumping all these groups into a single loose category, call it enemies of freedom, the war on terror or whatever you like, will help us to increase public security and promote democracy. Blowing up things and people in the third world may not make it any safer to ride the train in Toronto.

***

This is the first section of a longer blog which will appear online in parts over the next couple of days.

A reasonable criterion for military engagement

2006-06-19T01:55:00.000-04:00

149 yeas, 145 nays. There is not a lot of room for expression in a yes or no vote. And there are many politicians poised to exploit that fact for political gain. In effect they hope to make the public debate about the Afganistan mission just a little bit more stupid. They will pretend that the only serious options are yes or no to Stephen Harper’s war.

It’s surprising how rapidly Stephen Harper has abandoned the political centre on the issue of the military: the “tough” Bush inspired slogans, the emphasis on counter-terrorism, the secrecy, the obstruction of parliamentary debate leading ultimately to a rushed and acrimonious vote in the Commons, a disastrous public relations policy that attempted to hide the returning coffins of soldiers from the media, and now huge spending increases to the military budget including billion dollar items that the military –read Rick Hillier—does not consider necessary. These are all hallmarks of the authoritarian right wing, something that generally has not been popular in Canada in the recent past. As a result of his over eagerness to claim the issue, Stephen Harper may have difficulty dispelling a growing perception of being a little bit trigger happy.

It is to Harper’s advantage then to have everyone believe that the only other option is to oppose the mission. Indeed, as various politicians on the left calculate the potential votes, discussion is set to divide between these two stale ideological poses, leaving I suspect the majority of Canadians uneasily in the middle, feeling they should pick a side or maybe wavering noncomittally back and forth from month to month depending on the most recent news out of Afganistan. As the debate is currently framed, seizing the political centre would not be without peril. It would demand the skills of a seasoned politician, someone who could effectively resist the simplistic yea/nay mentality while communicating more reasonable options in a vivid way that regular people can understand.

It is important to note that before Harper came along, there was all party support for the Afgan mission. It is possible to have national consensus and it should be a criterion for future military engagements. Initial support for the Afganistan mission however was largely based on the assumption that it would follow in the highly respected Canadian peacekeeping tradition, the old consensus. This is not the case. The traditional peacekeeping role was challenged by the experiences of our troops in Rwanda which suggested that certain changes had to be considered. For instance, allowing soldiers to fire their weapons to protect civilians. The Liberals are to blame for perhaps moving too fast and committing the country to new, more violent, tactics before cultivating public opinion. That was a mistake. It could be argued that the aggressiveness of the new military strategy goes far beyond what would be required to avoid a repeat of the failures in Rwanda. Whether one initially agrees with this or not, it is an important topic that Canadians need to be made aware of before we make any further military engagements. We would be supporting the troops by finding a consistent policy that all Canadians could get behind regardless of which party is in power.

That does not change the fact that Canadian troops are currently in Afganistan as part of a commitment until 2008, a topic I will take up in a post in two weeks time. But first I want to look at “Who exactly are the enemies of freedom?”

A Rude Awakening

2006-06-12T00:57:00.000-04:00

Soldiers are sexy; war is not. There is something undeniably hot about healthy young men and women in uniform. The clean cut discipline, the determination, the muscles, the risks…

This attractiveness only heightens the tragedy of seeing coffins arrive back in Canada. In a letter mailed by Nichola Goddard shortly before her death in Afganistan, she wrote: “I have been thinking a lot about fate lately. It seems to me that we have such a responsibility to make the world a better place for those who were born into far worse circumstances. It is more than donating money to charities. It is taking action and trying to make things better.” http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=4eb68ec8-238d-49c1-ba9b-aaf8bc126221&k=1795

This unselfish commitment to improving the lives of others is deeply compelling.

The conflict in Afganistan was given a lot of publicity during Stephen Harper’s media tour of the war zone several months ago. My rude awakening came the next morning laying in bed listening to Montreal’s Mix96 on the radio. For those of you who have never heard one of the brief news reports offered by Mix 96, the announcer has a comically authoritative voice -- imagine the Bald Eagle reading the news on the Muppet Show. He broke into an unusually sustained editorial tirade about Stephen Harper and the troops, about Stephen Harper’s COURAGE and how here was finally a LEADER who wasn’t afraid to STAND UP and be counted with our boys over there, a man ready to TAKE ON the terrorists… and on an on in a what seemed like a endless stream of juvenile jingoistic platitudes. I turned down the volume, pulled a pillow over my head and rolled over thinking what a political error it would be if Stephen Harper took that tone on the war. The subtext clearly was: if you support the troops, you need to vote Conservative. And it is a subtext that Stephen Harper has in fact been promoting by imitating blatantly the schoolyard bully, “don’t cut and run,” type comments of George Bush. In a cynical manipulation of the public discourse, the troops become a political prop in a play for power. It’s an odd time though to imitate George Bush when public opinion, even in the U.S., is turning decisively on his mismanagement of the war in Iraq and turning against the deception and terms of emotional blackmail that initially mislead the Americans into war.

The uneasiness I have felt about Stephen Harper’s rhetoric and its resemblance to Bush’s failed war has distracted me – as I suspect it has for a lot of Liberals – from the issue of whether or not I believe the Afganistan mission will in Nichola Goddard’s words, “make the world a better place”. Liberals have appeared divided as a result of what some commentators view as savvy political manoeuvring on Stephen Harper’s part. But I suspect the division is more media driven than real. Since Lester Pearson and until Afganistan, there existed a strong consensus among Canadians about our place militarily in the world. I think it is time to rebuild that level of consensus while recognizing the flaws of previous missions, a topic I will take up in my next week’s post “A reasonable criterion for military engagement.”

The Coming Storm

2006-06-04T22:45:00.000-04:00

The climate prediction center of the national weather service is expecting a larger than average number of hurricanes this year.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/outlooks/hurricane.shtml

A sense of how much hurricanes cost economically is provided by payouts made by the insurance industry. During last year’s season, which also occasioned a larger than average number of hurricanes, american insurance companies paid claims totalling 22.9 billion dollars for four Florida hurricanes. http://uspolitics.about.com/od/electionissues/a/2005_hurricane.htm

The environmental movement was the butt of jokes for many years. Gloomy forecasts of environmental disaster (much like my last week’s post) are off-putting to say the least and almost beg to made fun of, especially because global warming has been so easily confused with an odd assortment of other issues that motivate the caricatural treehugger: like veganism, political correctness and an obscure fascination with the seal hunt. A recent South Park episode “Smug Alert” did an excellent job of lambasting the perceived smugness of the environmental movement. The smell of self-righteousness kept me personally from examining the issue of global warming carefully until only a few years ago. However, available data on global warming has grown substantially and now presents an impressive body of scientific evidence. Perhaps, one day we will look back on resistance to these facts as a quaint expression of the times, much as we now look at cigarette ads from the 1950’s. Perhaps, we will be able to forgive our collective ignorance magnanimously.

At the present moment, though, there is a serious need for public education, not likely to be undertaken by the current Conservative government. And yet another destructive hurricane season has the potential to focus the public mind as no paid publicity ever could. The voters will ask not only about the efficiency of immediate responses to the disaster, but will also want to know about what is being done to address the chronic problem of global warming. Canadians will demand leadership from their political parties -- all of them.

In the fall Stephen Harper’s government will introduce a Clean Air Act. I suspect that the packaging of the bill will be very deceptive, a topic I intend to post about later in the summer. But next week’s post, “A Rude Awakening” will be about a different topic, the military engagement in Afganistan.

Leadership on Global Warming

2006-05-28T12:07:00.000-04:00

There is something disturbingly irrational about Stephen Harper’s reaction to the threat of global warming. The facts though are fairly clear.

See the EPA website which is authoritative as well as friendly to the non-expert: http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/index.html

Massive human pollution in the form of carbon dioxide and several other gases collectively known as the greenhouse gases are altering the temperature of the planet by trapping heat from the sun within the Earth’s atmosphere. The oceans are warming which in turn melts the polar ice which in turn raises sea levels. The higher sea levels threaten to swamp low lying coastal areas including large regions that are now densely populated by human communities. The warmer oceans also radicalize summer storms which, with increasing frequency as we have witnessed in North America, are hitting land as murderous hurricanes. The indications of the effects of changes in seasonal temperatures on numerous ecological systems have been recorded. The precise implications for us, humans, and our economy which depends upon stable ecological conditions may be difficult to predict, but it is nonetheless clear that the changes in our way of living will be deep and far-ranging if the threat of global warming is not addressed by our generation. These are the facts and they simply will not go away.

Emotional reactions to these facts may vary… and perhaps understandably. It is a threat to our traditional way of life that can cause a lot of anxiety. The temptation toward denial is very strong, leading to a polarization of public opinion between those willing to face the danger and those who would deny its existence. The issue has definitely divided along partisan lines both in the United States and recently here in Canada as well. Within the last few months, Stephen Harper has cut funding for research, energy conservation as well as the transfer of around a billion dollars to the provinces targeted at upgrades to non-polluting sources of energy. Yet, the effects of global warming will be felt by everyone, regardless of who they voted for. We need leadership on this and a number of issues facing the country. Leadership will be the ongoing theme of my blog. More on this in my next week’s post “The Coming Storm”